Sports Writing on Deadline
Alan Wooten / Greenville Daily Reflector

Hurricane Floyd roared in on a Wednesday night. It nearly canceled East Carolina's game that Saturday at South Carolina. However, a caravan of players' buses and Greenville fans reached Columbia, S.C., and the game was played.

East Carolina next faced ninth-ranked Miami, Fla., at home in Greenville. The city was partially underwater, however, and officials decided to move the contest to North Carolina State's stadium in Raleigh. Meanwhile, East Carolina's team stayed on in South Carolina, living and practicing there.

Sept. 26, 1999

Shocking college football, East Carolina won an upset victory over Miami. The game ended about 10:15 p.m. A celebration on the field delayed post-game interviews.

None of those events deterred Staff Writer Alan Wooten, however. He filed his detailed report, including the "How they scored" graphic, before midnight. The last-page deadline was 12:30 a.m. It was one of the Daily Reflector's reporting coups at a difficult time.

"We did not expect East Carolina to win that game," said Editor Al Clark. "As it progressed we saw suddenly that we might win, and asked, 'Are we going to be able to deal with it, and have the kind of coverage it merited?' This puts fear in us as editors.

"Alan [Wooten] had been with the team all week, hardly getting home. He knew what the ramifications were, and what he was going to do.

"Extreme conditions often bring out the best in your folks. They did in Alan."
Wooten is the East Carolina beat writer, and also designs many of the sports pages.

He graduated from Elon College, where he was a member of the football team.