Kathryn Tappen was a part of NBC’s broadcasting team for the Cleveland Browns-Houston Texans game on Saturday afternoon. Unlike some other games being played during “Super Wild Card Weekend,” Tappen’s game did not have a storyline which involved weather. That evening her colleague, Kaylee Hartung, had to work the sidelines for Peacock in Kansas City, where the temperature was below zero and the windchill factor made it feel almost thirty below.
This morning, Tappen did her regular visit with the Border Patrol on 810 WHB in Kansas City. While still trying to thaw out, host Steven St. John asked Tappen right off the top, “What’s the coldest game you have ever worked the sidelines for?”
“It was a Green Bay Packers game on New Year’s Day, two or three years ago, and it was -13 degrees,” Tappen said. “My audio guys, god bless them, they had huge jugs of broth and they just kept handing me cups of broth.”
Tappen then gave her recipe for staying warm on the sidelines during those bone chilling assignments. “I’ve got gear,” she said. “I am legit decked out on those sidelines. I’ve got tricks. I wrap the ice bags from the hotel around my foot before I put tube socks around it, because that keeps your foot insulated. Then you put your boots on. I’ve got all my ski gear on. If you lit a match near me I’d blow up, becuase I have heated everything from top to bottom.”
Tappen then added, “The hard thing is speaking in the cold. Sometimes you just kind of sound like a drunken sailor trying to put your words together when your lips are completely frozen and you just can’t get it out.”
Before getting in to her analysis of the weekend’s games, Tappen said, “I was very happen to be in Houston on Saturday, I’m not going to lie!”
