EACH WEEK, WE'LL TAKE A LOOK BACK AT A MEMORABLE MOMENT IN ILLINI HISTORY, THANKS TO THE WORDS OF THE NEWS-GAZETTE

This week: With Brett Favre back in the NFL, it's hard to believe it nearly was a decade ago when the Ol' Gunslinger led Green Bay into Memorial Stadium for a "MNF" matchup against the Bears.

Headline: A Monday night party

Date: Oct. 7, 2002

By JEFF MEZYDLO

CHAMPAIGN - When Melissa Stark looks back on her early days as a sideline reporter for ABC's "Monday Night Football," she admits it was like the honeymoon stage of the biggest job of her career.

"At first, I was just so excited and I was just having fun," said Stark, who joined the "MNF" on-air team in 2000.

It took a little longer on the job to realize she actually ran away and joined the circus.

"Everything about it was bigger than life," Stark said. "I don't think I knew what I was in store for. Then when I realized how huge it all was, I was already into it, and that's when it became intimidating."

For 32 years, "Monday Night Football" has been a staple of the NFL for football fans across the country. If your team is fortunate enough to play on Monday night, it becomes a party. It's a time to get together with friends, pass the potato chips and see what surprises will pop up. In some cases, the feeling is only rivaled by the Super Bowl.

"MNF" will celebrate its 500th game next month.

"From the players' perspective to the fans, it's a whole different kind of perspective that we take," producer Fred Gaudelli said. "It's like a social event. It's all about Monday night.

"If you ask anybody in this business, without question, they'll tell you working on `Monday Night Football' is the pinnacle of their profession."

Though the announcers continue to change, the games aren't always appealing and the ratings aren't as high as they were in the program's heyday, "MNF" is consistently in the top 10 of prime-time television shows since 1990.

For fans, it's about fun; for those in front of, and behind, the cameras, it's their greatest and most demanding job. For the players, it's like opening night on Broadway.

"You get to showcase your talent to the whole world," said Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, who holds an 11-8 record on Monday night. "If you like to showcase your talent, this is the place to do it."

At 8 tonight, prime-time sports' biggest event comes to Champaign-Urbana and Memorial Stadium as the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers renew the game's best rivalry.

It's hard to describe what the scene in town will be like. With "MNF" in the house, it's a massive production and a massive celebration that has to be experienced in person.

"When `Monday Night Football' comes to town, it's an event," Stark said. "There's something different about Monday night. It's under the lights; it's the only game that day. There's still something special and something magical about Monday night."

A super job

When longtime ABC Sports producer Roone Arledge kicked off the first "Monday Night Football" broadcast on Sept. 21, 1970, in Cleveland, it revolutionized the way sports fans watched football.

It was a showcase. It opened the door to the three-man broadcasting booth that has gone from Howard Cosell to John Madden. Camera angles we never could have imagined became commonplace.

Fast-forward to this weekend, and the evolution has reached gigantic proportions for those on the crew, which exceeds 100 people on game day.

"It's a big undertaking," said Gaudelli, who is in his second year producing the show. "We treat every game like it's the Super Bowl."

The "MNF" production crew arrived Saturday in Champaign and literally won't stop working on the broadcast until the game is over late tonight or early Tuesday morning.

"The week-after-week magnitude of `Monday Night Football' was something I don't think anybody can prepare for until they've done it," said third-year "MNF" director Drew Esocoff, who has directed Rose Bowl and NCAA championship football games for ABC Sports. "The prime-time microscope is different than college football. It's not comparable. You've got to go through it to understand what it's all about."

Nearly 20 cameras are deployed during a broadcast. For Esocoff and other members of the crew, the job keeps going long after the final whistle blows.

"You're almost on call 24 hours a day," Esocoff said. "I try to take at least a half-day off, whether it's Wednesday afternoon or Friday afternoon, to spend quality time with my kids and my wife.

"There are times when you are on call but you're not necessarily busy. You're doing prep work."

Stark began her preparation for tonight's game Tuesday, the day after she worked on air in Baltimore. Madden and play-by-play veteran Al Michaels join her for interviews with both teams the weekend of the game.

"I actually start thinking about it the week before and try to stay up on everything that is going on with those teams," Stark said. "Definitely Tuesday morning, I start calling coaches, players, just trying to dig up any information I can. Then it's an evolution."

From the highlights of the Sunday games at halftime to Hank Williams Jr. asking, "Are you ready for some football?" to the Dennis Miller project, the show never has suffered from complacency.

"When we weren't playing the (Monday night) game, I remember watching the halftime highlights," said Madden, whose jumping ship from Fox to "MNF" was the biggest football transaction of the offseason. "We didn't have all the ESPNs and the highlight shows in those days. When you're in a game on Sunday, you really didn't know what went on in other places."

Like Madden, many tuned in for those highlights during the first two decades of the show, and many keep coming back.

Inside the numbers

It really doesn't matter who is on "Monday Night Football." People will tune in, even for a little while. Whether it's a love for football or just to catch the next breakout performance, people continue to watch, though maybe not as religiously as in years past.

"MNF" ratings have dropped seven straight seasons and 15 percent in the last two years. Despite that, the show rates consistently high with male viewers ages 25-54 who watch it more than any other show on television.

"From a ratings standpoint, you get similar ratings that you do from a major bowl game," Esocoff said."

Much of the success depends on the night's matchup. Bears-Packers will have eyes glued to the set, unlike Bengals-Lions.

In 2000, a host of games went down to the wire, but in years prior the scheduled matchups decided in the preseason proved to be less appealing once the regular season began to play out.

This year, things look good for the show.

The New England-Pittsburgh opener on Sept. 9 was thehighest-rated show of the night, beating out a rerun of CBS' "Everybody Loves Raymond."

The Philadelphia-Washington game in Week 2 drew the third- highest rating of the week behind "Raymond" and "Survivor: Thailand."

ABC also has seen an increase in its demographical ratings this year.

According to ABC Sports, "MNF" viewership with men ages 18-34 is up 30 percent, up 16 percent with ages 18-49, up 20 percent with adults 18-34 and up 8 percent with adults 18-49. Overall, viewership of the show through four weeks of the NFL season is up 5 percent.

That's good news for ABC and for its affiliates. Decatur's WAND likes those numbers because it makes more money through local advertising spots.

"We're able to sell them for most of the prime-time shows, especially `Monday Night Football,' when the Bears and the (St. Louis) Rams are playing," WAND general manager T.J. Vaughan said. "That just makes it bigger."

Vaughan is excited about tonight's ratings potential. Though he declined to offer the price for a 30-second spot for tonight's game, he said it can go for almost "twice as much as normal air time." WAND's air time is based on ratings and demographics, mostly with that male audience who lives for their Monday nights. But maybe not as much as the guys on the field.

The place to be

The Chicago Bears' season was more than a month away, but defensive end Bryan Robinson had one date on the schedule planted in his mind: tonight.

" `Monday Night Football' is probably one of the best honors you can get throughout the year," Robinson said. "I've never played on Monday night. I don't really know what to expect. We're going to enjoy it, though."

The Bears have three Monday night games this season. Tonight is their first since 1997, and their three slots are the most since 1995. A 13-3 record in 2001 enabled ABC to extend the invitation.

"Monday night tells me that you are getting good report cards," Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said. "From our perspective, it's an award for a good season, and it tells our players that people enjoy watching you.

"Everybody will know the Bears at the end of the year. There's a little more pressure that comes with Monday night, and that's good. I embrace it."

The Bears are 2-2, and the Packers are in town. Throw in the electric atmosphere that has filled Memorial Stadium in two games this season, and the pressure intensifies and the blood boils. Just what the players like.

"That's big time," said Bears receiver Ahmad Merritt, who hopes to debut tonight after missing the first four games with a broken hand. Merritt is a Chicago native who grew up watching the Bears play on many Monday nights.

"It's like a bowl game in college; it's like the playoffs last year," Merritt said. "It will be that type of stage. I like that kind of stuff. It's just the atmosphere. I love `Monday Night Football.' "

And he's not alone.

A game of memories

Ask anybody around ABC's "Monday Night Football" crew and they'll tell you that Gaudelli can recite most of the great on-field moments in "MNF" history.

Off the top of his head, he vividly remembers Earl Campbell's 199-yard, four-touchdown performance against Miami in 1978. He then jumps to the Bears-Dolphins game in 1985, which is still the highest-rated game in the show's history (29.6 rating, 46 percent share).

Esocoff takes a different approach when reliving his Monday night memories.

"I remember the announcers," Esocoff said. "I remember Howard Cosell. I sort of watched it from a TV standpoint. It's been a major part of this business for a long time."

Madden, naturally, remembers the games he was part of as coach of the Oakland Raiders, especially his only "MNF" loss in 1974 against Buffalo.

"It's funny how you go through all those games, and the ones you remember are the ones you lost," Madden said. "We're up in Buffalo, and they came behind to beat us at the end of the game. ABC was so happy."

Bears coach Dick Jauron doesn't remember his first time on "Monday Night Football" while playing with Detroit. He does remember when Cosell came into the team's locker room the day before their prime-time date and fell for the shaving-cream-on-the-telephone- receiver prank.

"I know I didn't play on Monday night a lot," Jauron said. "But the players like it because everybody they know gets to see it. Their families back home get to see it. The whole world is watching. They'll do everything they can to respond to that. I'm sure I felt the same way."

Stark, whose father was the team eye doctor for the Baltimore Colts, has more recent, first-hand, memories.

There was Denver quarterback Brian Griese rallying the Broncos past the Raiders with a separated shoulder in 2000.

"That was an amazing, gutsy performance," Stark said.

Then there was the New York Jets' improbable fourth-quarter comeback at a near-empty Giants Stadium against Miami the same year. More recently, she was in the middle of the bizarre pepper spray incident with some fans and security when Philadelphia played last month at Washington.

"That was strange," Stark said. "I will put that on my all-time most memorable moments. The look of players covering up (their mouths and noses) and throwing up blood. It was scary for five or eight minutes there."

Stark continually forges new memories with her crowd encounters, which let her truly see the reach the program continues to have.

"It depends on where you are - or how much they've had to drink," Stark joked. "They want to get my attention during the game, so sometimes you just try to smile and wave. During the game, I have to concentrate on the game. Before the game, I'll sign autographs and take pictures and do the same after.

"It's great to know the fans are excited we're there and that `Monday Night Football' is there. In and of itself, it's an event. It has such an aura about it. It's something special."