Winter Marathon 2024: A Recap

Photo by Olive Samsel | Article by Bella Lardin

On Friday, February 16th, WPTS staffers gathered together for the beginning of Winter Marathon, WPTS Radio’s annual 24-hour programming special. The following is a brief overview of some of Marathon’s highlights. Check back here for audio and video clips from the event.

The Pre-Show
Winter Marathon just so happened to coincide with the 20th WPTS anniversary of our general manager, Greg Weston. The hour before marathon began, the entire director board along with Dean Panzella and other special guests from around campus gathered in the lobby of the station for a surprise party, complete with cake. Greg was interviewed by the Pitt News to talk about his experience with WPTS Radio- you can read that article here.

The Characters
Frequently, the most fun element of the on-air component of Marathon are the talk hours. This year’s schedule was filled to the brim with them- from a WPTS Bachelor contest to an “out of this world sports takes” segment to discussions about movies and celestial bodies and anything nerdy. Along with these hours came the creation of some unforgettable characters. Great Aunt Irma and cousin Norma led listeners through an hour of “space cowboy” songs, while aliens Shalazreal, Glorp, and more vied for our astronaut Arnold’s affections during our bachelor contest. We hope that some of these aliens will return to WPTS for next year’s marathon.

“There are a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of battle scars, a lot of wounds, heartbreak, a lot of cackling and screaming.”

“Love is love, even if it’s space love between an astronaut and an alien.”

The Robot

About halfway through marathon, just before the clock struck midnight, a small gathering of staffers took to the hallway to construct a robot made entirely of cardboard boxes and aluminum cans dug from recycling bins. The robot is still standing in the director’s room despite having endured several near-catastrophic falls. Many staffers involved in the robot’s creation regarded it as the highlight of their Winter Marathon experience.

The Snow

Around the same time as the robot construction, a number of staffers looked out the station window to see snow falling- and immediately rushed to the lawn of Soldiers and Sailors to make snow angels and (allegedly) have a snowball fight.

“It was like a movie.”

 

The Radio Drama

The creative streak of WPTS Radio’s students shone through at midnight with a radio drama written by our very own news director Liam Tinker. Written in just about a week to the adoration of many of our staffers, the script was read live on air for the first time by everyone who was able to make it to midnight. Liam directed the on-air performance, managing sound effects and pointing to staffers as they read their lines. Liam, if you’re reading this, please publish that script.

“If you told me that was a radio drama that was written in 1962, I’d be like yeah, totally.”

The Gaming

LOTS of gaming happened at marathon this year. The first burst of gamers occurred at 7pm, when after a speedy load out from the previous hour’s live show, a group of sports staffers gathered to provide live commentary of a Rocket League competition. Those staffers who did not compete in the tournament filled in as coaches, encouraging their fellow WPTS-ers with pep talks and random images in their phone galleries. The sports staff running the show provided biting commentary and a variety of different sound effects to spice up the show.

By the time the clock struck 2am, the remaining staff was trying anything they could manage to keep their eyes open. For some, this took the form of drinking an excessive amount of coffee; for others, myself included, it took the form of video games. An Xbox was hooked up to the TV in the director’s room, and thus began 10 hours straight of gameplay, beginning with the most recent Madden game. After Madden there was cricket, and The Sims, and Goldeneye… our sports director was up all night just playing these games. He then called a basketball game no more than six hours after Winter Marathon ended. I hope he got some sleep after that.

“He was locked in on that Xbox, doing absolutely nothing else except playing video games. He beat whoever he played.”

The Waffle Situation

I’m just going to let our station manager explain this one.

“One time I really liked about 3 hours ago was making waffles with my waffle maker, but it was steamy fumes. And I didn’t even get one. Because at some point in time, people started to make eggs in the waffle maker. But they didn’t clarify that I shouldn’t close it. So I closed the waffle maker and then the eggs exploded all through the crevices of the waffle maker. And it was so hard to get out. That practice was straight up inadvisable. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The Recap

As is the tradition (does it count as a tradition if it’s only happened twice?), Winter Marathon concluded with a recap of the staffers’ favorite memories and themes from the event. Notably, this year’s group of last-staffers standing contained a number of graduating seniors. I’ll leave you with some of their thoughts, and you can listen to featured hours from Marathon below.

“I thought it sounded really awesome. Like Rocket League. That was sick. Movies. Radio drama was sick. I thought everything sounded really good.”

“I thought it was really on point this year. Last year’s theme was also good, but I feel like we had a lot of different stuff to do this year. We locked in, we locked in. We did not play around this year. We are locked in.”

“Just popping in, being able to talk about some stupid stuff with people at horrible hours of the night. It was a really great experience. I’m really glad I got to be part of it. It’s kind of sad because being station manager is so lit and it’s fun. It’s a lot of responsibility, but it is really fun. It is awesome. And I’ll be going to grad school next year. I don’t know where I’m going to be yet, but I think this is definitely my favorite winter marathon we’ve done since I’ve been in three because we didn’t have one my freshman year because of COVID, but yeah, it was really fun and I really like the theme.”

“Every other hour that you’ve heard was awesome. I had such a good experience. This is something that I will always remember very fondly.”