INSIDE THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS; FOX'S SPORTS WEST 2'S LOCAL BROADCASTS ARE AN EXPERIENCE FOR ALL.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

The sight of a 35-foot television truck squeezing through the narrow service roads on the Canoga Park High campus Thursday afternoon as it headed for the dirt track next to the football field could have easily caused a commotion.

But almost like another rocket launch, what teen-ager isn't used to seeing a TV truck these days? Even when it's there to televise a couple of rival teams playing on their field.

It's nearly seven hours before kickoff, but the groundwork for Thursday night's El Camino Real-Taft game on Fox Sports West 2 already had started in earnest. Eighteen crew members were uncoiling cables, uncrating cameras and winding wires around the grass field to transform the otherwise unassuming piece of land into a temporary outdoor TV studio.

Within a few hours, there'd be 30 members of the production team on site, including announcers Jim Watkins and John Jackson. And when the game ends at about 10 p.m., they'll all disappear in about an hour.

(Actually, Pacific Bell workers were there the day before to install additional phone lines and set up the transmitter equipment for Fox's production).

A group of students from a P.E. class jog around the track at about 2 p.m., but otherwise don't notice the casually dressed technical folk unless they have to hurdle over a wire or avoid a forklift. Only the sheep and chickens penned across the way that belonged to the school's Future Farmers of America club seemed to be making noise about what was going on.

``In a lot of ways, this set-up is more interesting to watch than before a Lakers or Dodgers game,'' said Micah King, the game's producer who looks no older than one of the Canoga Park High students.

King, a 27-year-old Long Beach State grad, has been working on the Fox Sports pregame shows for the Lakers and Dodgers, where all the trucks have to do is pull in, plug in and do a show. King appreciates the opportunity to do a live sporting event, which is what he aspires to do as a full-time career.

The reason this comes off looking like a college-quality telecast on TV has a lot to do with the equipment put into these shows by Fox, in its second year of a deal with the CIF to televise a football game of the week.

If ratings for these games appear as nothing more than a blip on the cable ratings radar, it serves many purposes for Fox to do them. It's file footage of local stars who eventually go on to play for USC or UCLA and can be used on either school's half-hour sports shows. Games are picked up on satellite dishes by recruiters as well as media members who vote in national polls. Even a live game, like the Mater Dei-De La Salle contest earlier this year, is of interest to the Fox Bay Area regional outlet.

And, as was the case Thursday night, it fills a programming void. Before the NBA lockout, a Clippers game had been penciled, which would have forced the El Camino Real-Taft game to a delayed broadcast. Instead, high school football went live.

King, who has rotated this season on the FSW2 high school football game of the week with John Heffner and Dave Frederick, knows this is just as much a hands-on experience for him as it is for much of the crew manning the cameras and loading the graphics.

``None of us are the front-line guys,'' said King without sounding condescending. ``Everyone here has had limited experience, so this really is learning on the job.''

Technical director Ismael Soto finds the most interesting part of these games is when high school students come by during the telecast to look in the truck at all the monitors, or talk to the cameramen about what they do.

``The students love to poke around; it's just like getting job information for them,'' said Soto, who has worked on half the games this season. ``These schools bend over backward to help us out anyway. Many go beyond the call of duty.''

Added King: ``I never had this kind of access when I was in high school. All I ever saw was the big truck outside. I never knew what was in it.''

Or, how one of those rigs could ever make it through a narrow gate on a high-school campus.

SOUND BYTES

By Tom Hoffarth E-mail: sptmediaaol.com

WHAT SMOKES

NFL profiteer Michael Ovitz comes off as a ``very compelling, bright, charming guy who has a vision and a reputation for making dreams happen,'' said reporter Tom Murray, whose two-part interview with the man trying to bring football to Carson airs during the new episode of ``Goin' Deep'' magazine show for Fox Sports Net (airing on Fox Sports West at 9 p.m. Sunday).

New Jersey Nets never-at-a-loss-for-worry forward Jayson Williams and teammate Keith Van Horn are guests tonight (11:30 p.m.) on HBO's ``Chris Rock Show'' to talk about the NBA labor situation. On CBS' ``Late Show'' with David Letterman on Wednesday, Williams blurted out about NBA commissioner David Stern: ``Good guy, great guy, brilliant guy, but did you see his new beard? Here goes a 5-foot-2 inch Jewish guy, right, sitting across the table from 7-foot black guys from the ghetto and he's cutting off their million dollar checks every month - and he thinks he's scaring them with that beard. You got to come better than that Dave.''

NBA players have been muttering about a boycott of NBC and Turner during the lockout, calling them co-conspirators since both TV networks will soon pay the owners rights fees even with canceled games. To which Dick Schaap said on ESPN's ``The Sports Reporters'': ``Does this mean Michael Jordan is no longer going to confide in Ahmad Rashad? How are we going to get Michael's innermost thoughts with Ahmad's probing questions? How will journalism survive?''

Mike Lupica's show on ESPN2 has been canceled, reportedly because of low ratings, high production costs and the fear his ego would implode with the coming of High Definition Television.

WHAT CHOKES

Speaking of Ahmad: NBC's ``NBA Inside Stuff'' shows the fallout of no player participation. On Saturday's show, for example, the ``inside stuff'' is about Lakers trainer Gary Vitti, a gym dedication to WNBA star Lisa Leslie, pieces on new Sacramento assistant coach Byron Scott and new Milwaukee head coach George Karl, plus a retrospective on the career of Washington GM Wes Unseld.Calm down, kids. Your folks can tape it for you if you miss it.

Terry Bradshaw's beard.

Fox announced it will buy $2 million worth of additional TV advertising to promote its Fox Sports News cable show. As if this idea hasn't crossed their minds - take that cash and bring over Keith Olbermann.

By the way, Fox Sports News has yet to hire a studio analyst to replace Craig Simpson, who split last summer to become a CBC-TV analyst in Canada. Cammi Granato, Jim Fox and the Kings' Russ Courtnall have been substituting so far. Suggestion: Take the Kings' Ray Ferraro. Please. The 34-year-old has done it before on ESPN and has been fighting off injuries the past few seasons. And it would give the team a break by not having someone take penalties in key situations.

NBC, the edgiest sports network on TV, has come up with an unusual concept to air this summer called the ``Gravity Games,'' featuring 11 ``adrenaline-based'' sports including biking, inline skating, street luge, wakeboarding . . . hey, if you're thinking this is just a knockoff of ESPN's wildly successful ``X-Games,'' well, you're WRONG. ``We're always looking for exciting new programming concepts,'' said NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol, who apparently doesn't have cable.

WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV

The top 10 Nielsen-rated sports events (with their share numbers) on L.A. television from Oct. 29-Nov. 4:

Event Date Station Rt/Sh.x

NFL: San Francisco-Green Bay 11/1 Fox 16.2/35

NFL: Dallas-Philadelphia 11/2 KABC  14.5/24

NFL: Denver-Cincinnati 11/1 KCBS  9.2/22

NFL: Oakland-Seattle 11/1 ESPN 7.6/13

NFL: Minnesota-Tampa Bay 11/1 Fox 6.8/16

NCAA: Washington-USC 10/31 KABC 6.0/16

NCAA: Stanford-UCLA 10/31 FX 3.7/8

Tour Golf championship 10/31 KABC 2.9/6

NCAA: Baylor-Notre Dame 10/31 KNBC  2.7/8

Tour Golf championship 11/1 KABC 2.3/5

Note: Fox Sports West 2's ``Clipper Classic'' on 11/1 had a 0.2 rating.

x-One rating point equals 50,092 TV homes in Los Angeles; a share is the percentage of all the TV sets in use at that time.

CAPTION(S):

2 Boxes

Box: (1) SOUND BYTES (See Text)

(2) WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV (See Text)