SMU Diary

When I was first asked to host the family weekend talent show I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. I thought it would be a great chance to meet some girls and participate in an event that might be considered mostly “greek.”

The talent show looked to be a perfect opportunity for me to get involved.

I never realized how much time and effort would be required in order to put the show together. All of the late nights, all of the practice time. I take my hat off to the ladies that put the entire thing together. With every night that passed, the show started to become more of a reality. Before I knew it, my parents were in town and the big night was just hours away.

It wasn’t until about five minutes before the show was about to start that I truly realized what was resting on my shoulders. If I messed up, all of the hours the students had been practicing, the crew spent preparing, the committee spent organizing, would have been wasted. That is about the time my knees buckled and I wet my pants. Not to say the show was about me. It wasn’t. It was my job to keep the people in their seats from start to finish.

The first time I stepped onto the stage and looked into the bright lights, a chill ran across my chest, down my arms and my legs went limp. I believe that my decision to open the show in my boxers and a dress shirt may have done more to relax me than to humor the audience.

I have a strange sense of comfort in front of large groups of people when I’m wearing little clothes.

After I spoke my first words, the rest just seemed to follow. I could see nothing in front of me but I envisioned every person in the audience with a little smile on their face. It was going to be my job to keep it there.

On stage, I just tried to work with the crowd. I drew up a plan, wrote my own lines and created the skits. If I bombed out, I could only blame myself. On the other hand, it was offstage where I was a total mess. Every time I walked off stage, chaos awaited me on the other side of the curtain.

The young ladies in charge of the evening sat in chairs right in front of the dressing room. I had a feeling all night that I would be letting them down if things didn’t go well. Each time I exited the stage I hoped for a positive reaction.

Then little things started to go wrong. Groups weren’t reporting on time, mics went dead, prop set-up took longer than expected. If the backstage crew hadn’t done such a brilliant job putting it together, I would have thrown in the towel at the start.

The night moved on and I received my fair share of laughs. I also handled some heckling and a few jokes that didn’t produce much of a reaction.

I have never been the kind of person that really cares what people think about me. For some reason, that night I cared about everything. I cared what people said when I was backstage, when I was offstage, when I was onstage. I cared about what the crew thought, the performers thought, the audience thought.

I couldn’t shake the nerves.

After the show was over I was still buzzing a mile a minute. It was done, over, no more and I had made it. We had made it. All of the hard work that everyone had put into the show had paid off. The best part was that I didn’t screw any of it up.

I made my way out to the lobby and that’s when the compliments began. Random parents grabbing my arm and telling me, “good job.” Students that I had never met saying, “you are so funny.” Friends and family saying, “we are proud of you” and “job well done.”

Once in my car, I put the window down and cranked the radio up. The chills started to come back.

I figured it would be all right to let my head swell a little that night. I had earned it.

For the rest of the evening I walked around with a permanent smile on my face. I had never been so flattered by so many people in my entire life. I’m honored for the opportunity that I was given and will forever cherish the memory of such a special event.