Chris Zuccaro’s experience filming and editing football may be responsible for bringing him to Bowling Green, but it is the passion that he developed after years on the job that allowed him to turn it into a long-term career.

“This is my job and this is what I love to do,” Zuccaro said. “Until I retire or until I die, one of the two.”

Now entering his second season with the Falcons, Zuccaro and his student film crew are responsible for filming games and practices, along with editing them together so the coaches can view the footage. He is also responsible for taking care of the equipment and making sure other teams can view the footage as well.

His efforts have been recognized by the Collegiate Sports Video Association, which named him the 2011 Mid-American Conference Video Coordinator of the Year.

Coach Dave Clawson said Zuccaro is a great asset to team strategy. With 8-10 hours a day spent watching video, Clawson finds it to be “extremely valuable” to developing the football team, especially with recruiting new players, getting a feel for rival team strategy, and ultimately looking at his own team’s performance.

Clawson said that Zuccaro was hired after a national search. He cites his experience with several different schools as a factor in the decision, as well as his expertise with the University’s video system, DV Sport.

“[Zuccaro] understands football, so when a play is being run he knows which part of the play we need to be watching,” Clawson said.

Zuccaro’s experience with the sport began his junior year of high school when the head football coach asked him to help the team by filming games.

He carried this job into college at the University of Mississippi before becoming an intern at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he received his bachelor’s degree for sports administration in 2006.

He began his job as video coordinator at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and served for two years before coming to the University.

“It started off as a love for sports and wanting to be involved, but I’ve very much developed into a video person over that time, so it’s probably equal parts … of the video and the sports now,” Zuccaro said.

Zuccaro has developed his camera skills to the point that he feels confident teaching new crew members about filming, but they need to have a good understanding about the sport of football.

“Coming into a job like this, if you don’t have a sports background, it’s really tough if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Zuccaro said.

His staff comes from a variety of backgrounds, and he said it is good for people to come in with interest in both sports and video experience, so he said that broadcast production and sport management training can be helpful.

The job itself can provide excellent opportunities for future aspirations in coaching video and sports production video careers, which is experiencing rapid growth, Zuccaro said.

While Zuccaro does not offer coaching advice to the team, he does make suggestions about new video equipment that can make the process easier.

According to Clawson, the advances in technology have sped up the coaching process tremendously, changing from 16 millimeter film to VHS tapes and DVD before achieving its current digital form.

He said the process is more efficient because he can enter specific searches into the digital editing system and instantly receive the clips, as opposed to rewinding, skipping and sifting through old footage.

“Now, so much of it is just digital media files,” Clawson said. “It’s just kind of stored in cyberspace.”

Zuccaro also feels the shift in technology, and he began his career shooting on a Beta Cam at the University of Mississippi and making Super VHS copies of the footage for the coaches.

In his second year, the industry took a more digital direction, and now everything is done on digital networks.

The football team also has its own private server that the coaches and players can access from specific offices. It is Zuccaro’s hope in the next year for the players to be able to access the server from their dorm rooms or apartments.

Instead of staying up all night getting copies ready for the coaches, Zuccaro is now able to put an entire game onto the system in literally 20 minutes and have practices ready to be viewed fairly soon after practice.

“These are things that six years ago weren’t even a thought in people’s minds, and today we are doing those things,” Zuccaro said.