[COLD OPEN — last season's title animation with the 5 painted over in an orange that does not match, so it reads 2026 in two colours. Paw wipe, left to right. The audio pops on beat two the way it has every year since somebody exported it wrong in 2019.]
[SFX: the horn sting. It is too loud. It has been too loud since 2019.]
[TITLE CARD: TIGER TELEVISION · SEASON TWELVE · WELCOME BACK, TIGERS]
[STUDIO. Two anchors behind a folding table with a printed vinyl front that has begun peeling at the left corner.]
MICHAEL PEARCE JR.ANCHOR · SPORTS
Pearce
Morning Fenton. First Tiger Television of the year, first one of my last year, and I have been told to stop pointing that out. I am Michael Pearce.
DF
Frost
And I'm Delaney Frost. This is my first year at the desk, so if I mess up, that is why.
Pearce
She has been practising since June. She is not going to mess up.
DF
Frost
I have been practising since June. That part is true and I wish he had not said it out loud.
DELANEY FROSTANCHOR · SCHOOL NEWS
DF
Frost
Announcements. Schedules went out on the portal over the weekend. If there is a study hall sitting in your fourth hour that you did not ask for, the office is aware, and Mrs. Delp would like it on the record that she is aware, and that you coming down there does not make her more aware.
DF
Frost
Fall sports photos, Tuesday the twenty-fifth, aux gym, 2:45. The form comes with you. If you do not bring your form you will still have your picture taken, but Mrs. Delp says — and I am reading this exactly as she wrote it — "you will not like how that conversation goes."
Pearce
She wrote that?
DF
Frost
Cafeteria: the new point of sale is in, which means you tap instead of typing your number. One beep means you paid. Two beeps means you did not. Two beeps and you keep walking means, and I am quoting Mr. Cavanaugh here rather than editorialising, that you have stolen a sandwich.
[B-ROLL: the cafeteria line at 11:20. A freshman taps the reader four times. It beeps twice every time. Nobody helps him.]
DF
Frost
Marching band starts full-field rehearsals Monday, six to eight thirty. Mr. Perkins asked us to tell you the show is called Nocturne, that it is harder than the last three, and that he means it differently this year than the way he means it every year.
Pearce
Weather: hot Thursday, about ninety, then it breaks and Friday night is supposed to be seventy-one at kickoff. For late August that is basically a gift.
Pearce
Delaney.
DF
Frost
I am setting you up. Go.
[TRANSITION: paw wipe. SFX sting. TITLE CARD: TIGER SPORTS — brought to you by Fenton Wing & Grill, "Where the Tiger Bucket lives."]
[The sting plays. The card does not load. Six seconds of the paw wipe frozen mid-wipe over black.]
DF
Frost (off-camera)
Is it —
Pearce (off-camera)
Just go. Go.
DF
Frost (off-camera)
I am not on this one.
Pearce (off-camera)
Right. Sorry. Sorry.
[The card loads. It is the 2024 card. Nobody fixes it and it stays up for the entire segment.]
TIGER SPORTSFOOTBALL · WEEK 1 PREVIEW
Pearce
Fenton football opens a week from Friday, August twenty-eighth, at home against Clio. Seven o'clock. And I want to say the thing out loud, because I think we have all been walking around not saying it.
Pearce
This team did not lose a regular season game last autumn. Nine and zero. Neither person at this desk was alive the last time that happened at Fenton. Then Nick Mansour got hurt in week nine, we lost in the second round, and everybody quietly agreed to stop talking about it.
[FULL SCREEN: 2025 REGULAR SEASON — 9–0. Beneath it: N. MANSOUR, JR. SEASON LINE — 35 TD PASSES, A SCHOOL RECORD · ZERO INT · 75% COMPLETIONS · 850 RUSHING YARDS. The "0 INT" is in a different font because whoever built the graphic ran out of the licensed one.]
Pearce
Thirty-five touchdowns, zero interceptions. Sit on that for one second. Zero. All season. First-year player. Before last August he had never played a down of it anywhere, for anyone, at any age.
DF
Frost
Is that not normal?
Pearce
Delaney, that is so far from normal that when I told my uncle he thought I was lying to him.
Pearce
Eight hundred and fifty rushing yards and zero rushing touchdowns as well, which is its own strange thing — that is because Shane Kolinski gets it inside the five. Every time. That is the whole reason.
[B-ROLL: Kolinski in the weight room. He notices the camera. He flexes. He holds the flex considerably too long.]
Pearce
One more thing before the interviews, and this is a correction, because we said it on this programme in November and it was not right. We told you Coach Setzke read Nick's article in the school paper and brought him onto the team. That is not what happened. Coach Setzke has never read it.
DF
Frost
Wait. Then what actually happened?
Pearce
He texted Coach Setzke three times over about fourteen months, starting when he was a freshman. The first two, nothing. No reply at all. On the third one he attached forty-one pages of scouting he had done on his own and said Coach could just have it.
DF
Frost
Forty-one pages of what?
Pearce
Charting. Every opponent, every game, by down and distance. Nobody asked him to do any of it. Then he worked for this team for a whole season, unpaid — printing scripts, cutting film, getting water — and then the spring practice thing happened.
DF
Frost
Why does everybody tell it the other way?
Pearce
Because we told it the other way first and it is a better story. That is the honest answer. The paper is running a correction on the front page this week.
[Ms. Ruvalcaba can be heard off-microphone saying "good." Pearce does not acknowledge it and visibly wants to.]
Pearce
Anyway. We got about ninety seconds with Coach Setzke on Monday, walking.
[FIELD PACKAGE. Setzke, hat, whistle, walking. He does not stop walking for the duration of the interview and the camera operator visibly struggles.]
JEFF SETZKEHEAD COACH · FENTON FOOTBALL
Setzke
We are not defending anything. Last year is over. We have eleven new starters somewhere on this football team and we open against a Clio team that is a lot faster than people think.
Pearce (off-camera)
What do you want out of Nick this season?
Setzke
Play well. Take care of the football. He is our quarterback.
Pearce (off-camera)
Is there any worry about him physically, given what happened in —
Setzke
He is cleared. A doctor cleared him in March. Next question.
Pearce (off-camera)
That was my last one.
Setzke
Good. [He keeps walking.]
[CUT. The corridor outside the quarterback room. Sitko is holding the door with one foot and has plainly been ambushed on his way into a meeting.]
MARTY SITKOQUARTERBACKS COACH
MS
Sitko
I have got a meeting in — how long is this.
Pearce (off-camera)
Like two questions.
Pearce (off-camera)
What is the biggest thing Nick has to improve this year?
MS
Sitko
Getting down. Getting on the ground. He takes hits he does not have to take because he wants to finish a throw, and I have told him — how many times have I told you.
[MANSOUR is inside the room, off-camera. He answers without appearing.]
NM
Mansour (off-camera)
A lot.
MS
Sitko
A lot. He is aware. Awareness is not the problem, it is — okay, that is one question.
Pearce (off-camera)
Is it true you did not want him to be the starter?
[Four seconds. Sitko lets go of the door. It closes.]
MS
Sitko
Who told you that.
Pearce (off-camera)
Um. A couple of people.
MS
Sitko
It is true. Yeah. I was against it. Ben Haijcar had earned that job and I said so and I would say it again. [He looks past the camera at the door.] And he can hear me saying it, and he has heard me say it, and if you are going to run this you run all of it, not just the first sentence.
Pearce (off-camera)
What is the rest of it?
MS
Sitko
The rest of it is that I was wrong and he is the best I have ever coached at this. [He opens the door again.] Both of those. Run both of those.
[He goes in. The door shuts. The camera stays on the shut door for long enough to become a decision, and then somebody remembers to stop recording.]
[LOWER THIRD, added in post: "This interview was not on the schedule."]
[CUT. The equipment room doorway. Shaffer, sitting on a cooler, entirely willing to stay as long as anybody wants.]
PAUL SHAFFEROFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
PS
Shaffer
What I would tell you is he is a different kid in that huddle than he was in August of last year. Not the throwing. The other part — running ten other people. Last year they did what he said because he kept being right. Now a few of them do it because they like him, and that is a completely different currency and it takes a lot longer to earn.
Pearce (off-camera)
Do you think college coaches are going to work out how good he is?
PS
Shaffer
[laughs] Buddy, I hope so. I have been coaching in this league a long time and I have never had a kid I wanted somebody to come and watch this badly. Nobody has come. I will say that plain. Nobody has called me.
PS
Shaffer
Chase Lynch has people calling. Eastern has been out. That is great, that kid has earned it. Nobody has called about Nick.
[There is a long silence in the raw file. About a second and a half of it survived the edit, which was the correct decision by whoever made it.]
PS
Shaffer
It will happen or it will not. He is still going to play.
[TRANSITION: paw wipe.]
Pearce
We also grabbed Nick for a couple of minutes. He does not love doing this.
[Off the studio. Mansour on a stool in front of the backdrop, which never comes down the last eight inches, so there is a band of choir room across the top of every shot.]
NICK MANSOURSENIOR · QUARTERBACK
Pearce
How is the body?
NM
Mansour
Good. Cleared in March. It is not — people ask like it is still a thing and it is not still a thing. I got a scan, they said the kidney is fine, I go to practice.
Pearce
Is it weird being back out there?
NM
Mansour
A little. I have not been hit since October. That is a long time to not get hit and then decide you are going to start getting hit again on a Friday.
Pearce
What is the biggest difference in the offence this year?
NM
Mansour
Zach. Zach West. Everybody is going to be looking at Kevin, obviously, and they should, Kevin is the best player we have. But Zach is six-three and he can actually run and people in this league are going to keep putting a five-eight kid on him because that is who they have. That is — sorry, is that too much? That is probably too much to say on TV.
Pearce
No, that is great, that is exactly what I want.
NM
Mansour
Okay. Then yes. Zach.
Pearce
Last one. Everybody in this school is walking around convinced you spent the summer on college visits. Did you?
NM
Mansour
[laughs] I worked at Culver's.
Pearce
That is it?
NM
Mansour
Culver's, the weight room, a lot of piano, and Sundays on the practice field with Kev and Aaron. That is it. That is the entire summer.
[Pearce, off camera, audibly begins a follow-up and then does not ask it.]
[TRANSITION: paw wipe. TITLE CARD: HALLWAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK]
DF
Frost
Every week we go out and ask you something. This week: what is your prediction for the football team?
[MONTAGE — the north hallway during the passing period. The cuts are fast because half these answers are four words long.]
Senior, unidentified
Undefeated. Again. Easy.
Sophomore, unidentified
Um. Good?
Junior, unidentified
Six and three. Everyone is going to be mad at me for saying that but Goodrich is Goodrich.
Freshman, unidentified
Who is Goodrich?
Hannah Swain
We are going to be great and the student section is going to be the best it has ever been. Orange out, week one. Tell them: do not wear black, it looks terrible on camera and it is not the theme.
NM
Nick Melero
METRO CHAMPIONS. [He is approximately four inches from the microphone.] Metro champions, orange out, week one, and I want the whole east side standing from the coin toss. [He walks away, then comes back.] Also put in there that the student section is me and Hannah. It is both of us. People keep saying it is just her.
[Frost, off-camera: "She told us it was both of you." Melero: "Oh." He leaves again.]
Tommy Quinn
No idea. I am in the band. I watch every game from the end zone through the back of a sousaphone. [pause] I think he is going to be really good, though. Like — I have known him since we were nine. I still do not totally understand what is happening.
[TRANSITION: paw wipe.]
DF
Frost
That is us. Volleyball opens Thursday at Linden, golf is at Coyote Preserve on Monday, and if you want to be on this programme, Ms. Ruvalcaba has sixth hour free and asked me to read out the words "please, anyone."
Pearce
For Delaney Frost, I am Michael Pearce. Go Tigers.
[Four seconds of held smile, because nobody in the booth pressed anything. Frost gets through three of them.]
[END CARD: TIGER TELEVISION · FHS BROADCAST JOURNALISM II · "IN MEMORY OF MR. DELANO" — which has been sitting there since 2021, and which nobody currently enrolled has ever asked a single question about.]
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0