Western freshman Chris Lipscomb stands on the sideline of Wembley Stadium in London holding a San Diego Chargers helmet. From this view he can see everything—fans filing into their seats, camera crews preparing their equipment, referees shaking hands. He’s not playing in the game, and he hasn’t won the lottery to afford great front row seats—Chris Lipscomb is working.
In fact, for every Seattle Seahawks home game, Chris Lipscomb finds himself arriving at Qwest Field four or five hours before kickoff and staying well after the final seconds tick down. Some football fans would say he is the luckiest 18-year-old alive, but to Chris Lipscomb, who has been in this line of work since he was 15, it’s just his job.
Chris Lipscomb’s father, Bill Lipscomb, is a telecommunications contractor and started his own business called William Bruce Lipscomb (WBL) Services about 15 years ago.
Telecommunications for games, in simpler terms, is anything to do with technology going in and out of a football stadium. This means coaches’ headsets, belt packs, radio transmissions, Internet lines, phones and more. First and Goal Inc. and the National Football League (NFL) rely on Bill Lipscomb’s company to set up, test and monitor all of this technology during a game.
Bill Lipscomb is hired to work Seahawks football games for First and Goal Inc., a Seattle organization formed by Paul Allen to serve as the developer and operator of Qwest Field and Qwest Field Event Center. He also travels around the country paving the way for sports telecommunications and working for the National Football League (NFL).
Chris Lipscomb has assisted his dad with these services to First and Goal Inc. and the NFL since he was in high school and now helps whenever he can.
When Chris Lipscomb, a current electronic engineering major, was a sophomore at Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle, his dad gave him the opportunity to learn first-hand what his telecommunications company was all about.
“We went early to the stadium as usual,” he said. “I think I was shown how to do everything about … once.”
Chris Lipscomb was able to catch on quickly though, and he soon found himself at every Seahawks home game working for his dad. In total, he said he’s worked at about 34 Seahawks games.
Bill Lipscomb’s relationship with the NFL led to a six-day father and son trip overseas to London where the San Diego Chargers and the New Orleans Saints played in Wembley Stadium, which is primarily used for soccer games.
The trip caused Bill Lipscomb to skip work on a Seahawks game for the first time since he started working for the team about 20 years ago.
The second-annual NFL promotional game in London sold out within hours and left a lot of work to be done.
“We were in charge of things like scoreboards, video and audio feed, microphones and frequency coordination for radios,” Chris Lipscomb said.
Nikos Mouat, a long-time friend and colleague of the Lipscombs, accompanied Bill and Chris Lipscomb to London to help set up and monitor technology during the game.
“The first few days there, all we did was testing, testing, testing,” Mouat said. “Christopher was helpful because we needed a lot of hands for the set-up process.”
Microphone-testing responsibilities led Chris Lipscomb around the soccer-field-turned-football-field at Wembley Stadium two hours before game time.
“We tested the microphones in the quarterback’s and linebacker’s helmets before the game,” he said. “We had to make sure the frequency was OK.”
Mouat said the atmosphere of Wembley Stadium in London was very similar to games held in the United States.
“In the crowd, I saw fans of every single football team,” Mouat said. “I saw probably at least three Matt Hasselbeck jerseys.”
Chris Lipscomb describes the best night he ever worked at Qwest Field as the National Football Conference game in 2005 when the Seahawks beat the Carolina Panthers to move on to their first ever Super Bowl. The attendance was past capacity and he said it could be best described as incredible.
“The stadium was the loudest I’ve ever heard it,” he said. “It was standing room only in the press box and you couldn’t hear the person next to you.”
Chris Lipscomb still assists his dad with telecommunications for WBL Services when he can, but thanks to connections made at Qwest Field he landed his own job as an information technology supervisor with Levy Restaurants in August.
He monitors technology for all concession stands in Qwest Field, which may not seem strenuous, but the littlest things create the biggest problems, which affects his game-watching time, he said.
“I’m all over the place so I usually don’t even know what quarter it is,” he said. “I can’t be a fan when there’s work to be done.”
Chris Lipscomb makes sure registers and credit card machines are running properly, sometimes having to replace whole systems with lines of people waiting.
“It’s non-stop running around,” he said. “But after alcohol cut-off in the third quarter or halftime, it gets a lot better.”
Levy Restaurants requires Chris Lipscomb to be at not just every Seahawks home game, but every event hosted by Qwest Field Event Center, meaning games, concerts and other local events like the Western versus Central matchup, Battle in Seattle, held on Oct. 11.
His demanding work schedule assures that he makes the drive from Western down to Seattle almost every weekend.
“It gets hard balancing work with my classes, but I’ve done an OK job so far,” he said. “The tough thing is going to be when Sounders games start because they’re held on Thursdays or Fridays.”
Chris Lipscomb’s girlfriend, Western freshman Meaghan Kemp, said she knows his work schedule can be hectic, but understands why he works so hard.
“He is constantly working but [his job] is really important to him, so balancing everything is just something he has to deal with,” she said.
Most people Chris Lipscomb meets through work are much older, which may be intimidating to some, but most people didn’t grow up with a backstage pass to the NFL.
“I get questioned a lot [when I work],” he said. “I just don’t look like an authority figure. They’ll say, ‘Oh my god you’re that young?’”
Mouat said he would sit with Chris Lipscomb in the press box during Seahawks games before Chris Lipscomb worked for Levy, and was always struck by his maturity for a teenager.
“[Chris Lipscomb has] been doing this for so long that it’s easy for him to see the right way to act in a professional setting,” Mouat said. “He has had positive role models very early in his life.”
Even if distracted through the duration of home games, the Seahawks remain Chris Lipscomb’s favorite team.
“I grew up working with my dad, but I also grew up with the Seahawks,” he said.
Chris Lipscomb said he watches away games intently with family and friends and is always happy for a win for more ways than one.
“If [the Seahawks] do good, that’s great for me,” he said. “That’s one more potential game that I get paid for.”
Chris Lipscomb hopes to apply his electronic engineering degree to a career similar to what he’s doing now. He said he wouldn’t mind starting his own business someday like his dad’s.
“The people I know through work help guide me,” he said. “I’m definitely getting good connections through my job.”
The long hours of work, missing classes and balancing everything in between is all worth it to him, who said his opportunities have seemed endless since he started working for his dad four years ago.
“I’m constantly learning stuff everyday about my job, like how things work and why stuff happens,” Chris said. “I’m sometimes so busy working a game that I don’t have time to eat, but overall I’m not complaining.”
Only registered users can post comments.
Please login or register.
Be first to comment on this article
