Video: A TV Sports Guy Sent Outside to Do Storm Coverage is a Bomb Cyclone of Angry, Bitter Sarcasm

Charlie Neibergall. Shutterstock Images.

The pre-Christmas winter storm that is currently wreaking havoc across North America is testing our working men and women nearly to the breaking point across all sectors. From transportation to government services. Grocery stored to utilities. Of course our first responders, who as always are being asked to respond first, with no regard to their own safety:

 And that includes our nation's TV weather people. Severe weather such as this is to them what Christmas is to retail. What Valentine's Day is to florists. What Mother's Day is to greeting cards and brunch restaurants. This is the Super Bowl for people who strap on protective outer layers and tell us what is happening outside our windows. 

And it is a noble profession. One that the public values as much as any other. Case in point, everyone in the Boston market will recognize the name Shelby Scott. She was the intrepid reporter from Channel 4 who would roll up to the beaches of the South Shore any time we were threatened with a blizzard, hurricane, or Nor'easter. She had created such a legend around herself that when she finally decided to hang up her microphone, call it a career, and enjoy her golden years sitting at home by the fire on days like this, viewers demanded she come back. So the station pressed her into duty as a per diem for every major weather event. Because storm coverage simply wasn't the same without her. 

All that said, storm reporting is not for everyone. It's a specialty. Meant only for the few. The proud. And definitely not for a sports journo like Mark Woodley, of KWWL in Iowa. He didn't sign on for this:

Perhaps never has the sentiment "How does a guy get out of this chickenshit outfit?" been so eloquently expressed. He's like a guy who signed up for combat and finds himself on KP duty, peeling potatoes in some backwater hellhole somewhere. He came to KWWL to talk about Iowa State Cyclones basketball, not Bomb Cyclones. He wants to cover Hawkeyes football, not have his own eyes freeze solid with icicles. Send him out to Minnesota to cover TJ Hockenson or San Francisco to do a George Kittle feature for a little local flavor angle the networks missed. Don't send him out to freeze his dick off just so people know it's bad outside. 

These are the words of a man sick of this nonsense and trying to get himself fired. And in doing so, he's made himself a patron saint of disgruntled employees pulling garbage duty everywhere. May some station in a more temperate climate see this and give this proud man the dream job he deserves.