By JASON TIDD

Staff writer

A 24-year mainstay of Marion football broadcasting will no longer pace the sidelines with a microphone.

Casey Case reported on his last regular season Warriors football game for MCTV on Thursday.

Michael Powers presented Case with a round, bronze plaque inscribed with a big letter “M,” “Warriors,” and “MCTV” at halftime.

“The first season by far was the most memorable and funnest season,” Case said.

That would have been fall of 1994, when Marion County Television was founded under its old name: WTVN, the Warrior Television Network.

Case was one of the founding members of the crew in a year where the team played in the state championship.

“We knew we had a good team, but I’m not sure anybody knew we were quite that good,” Case said. “We got into the playoffs and we just started dismantling these other teams that were supposed to be so great and made it all the way to the finals.”

His nephew was the quarterback that year and the next, when the season ended in a loss Case still remembers.

“We went up to Silver Lake on Halloween night and got beat in the first round,” Case said. “I still remember it. It was devastating. Everybody was so sure this was the year we were going to go all the way, and we got knocked off in the first round.”

He has assisted in the press box, but he preferred to be on the sideline where he was closer to the action. Sideline reporting at Marion football games has put him on the sideline and traveling for road games, which are broadcast on Eagle Communications channel 20 on Sunday evenings.

“That first year we would just go to the games and we would sit in the bleachers,” Case said. “We go to an away game and just find a spot somewhere at the top of the bleachers. We would have a guy with a camera, and he would sit above the two commentators who each had a microphone. It was pretty simple.”

Technology has been the greatest change in Case’s 24 years.

“Our broadcasts have become a lot more high-tech,” he said. “When we started we had two guys and a camera. Now we have instant replay, we have slow motion, it’s like a little mini ESPN studio up there in the press box. Even on the road games we take scaffolding and we’re still pretty high-tech.”

Being close to the action is what he will miss most, but he said he will be available to substitute as a sideline reporter if needed.

Case said he gave a three-year notice three years ago. His youngest son graduated in 2014, when the current seniors were in eighth grade.

“I wanted to see this group of seniors through because some of the kids I’m good friends with their fathers, so I’ve sort of watched them come up,” he said.

While Case is “retiring from the sidelines,” he still plans to attend some Warriors football games.

“I just wanted to start enjoying my fall weekends more,” he said. “When you take Friday night out of it, it’s not much of a weekend. I want to do more camping and hunting and fishing and weekend trips.”