Meet Pam Clark, the one person in charge of deciding which footballs make it to the field for the Super Bowl each year, and which ones end up on collector’s shelves.
That’s a pretty big job, and one that this Ada, OH woman doesn’t take lightly. ” I like to be perfect,” she recently told the folks over at 19 Action News. “Inspect like they’re supposed to be.”
She’s been working this gig for over 35 years and has inspected hundreds of footballs for inconsistencies in stitching, stuffing, and weight, which can be tedious considering all the professional footballs are handmade.
“People are amazed when they come here, how all the things go into making a football,” Clark said of the Wilson Football Factory— Think 150 people working together to churn out 4,000 footballs each day, all of which have to go through the ultimate defensive line: Clark.
“I want to make sure all the teams that get the ball get the best. I take a lot of pride in it,” she said.
For more on Clark, head on over to 19 Action News.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2014.
Back in the late 1990s, the geniuses in Ohio State Athletics created a storm of controversy by initially telling Wilson Sporting Goods that they were no longer going to order footballs from that plant…..and were going with a Nike product manufactured overseas. After an outcry that started in Ada and went national, Athletics Director Andy Geiger had to back-track fast and mumble about a big misunderstanding.
So which female employee did Action 19 News pimp out in order to get this exclusive story?