Jazz video coordinator unsung hero

There's a lot more to the job than working a VCR

Jefferson Sweeney isn't a musician or an actor, but a number of Jazz coaches and players carry his DVDs around with them, at home and on the road, and everybody on the team uses his recorded material.

Sweeney is the Jazz's video coordinator, VJ Jazzy Jefferson, responsible annually for taping, dissecting, editing and dubbing images from some 1,000 college games, 1,000 to 1,100 NBA games, 50 to 60 European games and some NBDL games.

His control room at the Jazz's Zion's Bank Basketball Center practice facility is filled with VCRs and digital recording materials.

The DVDs he produces are used for team and individual game preparations and for scouting and keeping an eye on players all over the world who might be of interest to the Jazz as opponents, free agents, trade possibilities or draftees.

Jazz coaches need recent bits of information on coming opponents' tendencies, out-of-bounds plays, pick-and-rolls, back-door moves, alley-oops, defenses and the like.

Sweeney breaks those things down into clips on a tape or DVD for assistant coaches Ty Corbin and Scott Layden to view. They further winnow it into a finished product, if they have time, or tell Sweeney what they want, and he'll make the director's cut.

Also, Deron Williams, Memo Okur, Devin Brown and Milt Palacio want recent DVD clips of every coming opponent. Kris Humphries and Jarron Collins are also regulars. "It's just each individual, how they like to prepare," Sweeney says.

"Where it gets a little bit dicey," Sweeney says, is preparing all those materials for a trip like the five-game Eastern swing the Jazz just finished, providing coaches and players with up-to-date material before they leave. "You want to make sure they've got everything they need for the entire trip."

The work can be complicated by a situation like the one in Houston. Yao Ming had toe surgery Dec. 19 and is said to be out for "several weeks." Sometimes those estimates prove wrong, and Sweeney worried last week that Yao might be available to play against the Jazz in Houston tomorrow night. Sweeney needed recent video of the Rockets with and without Yao.

Sweeney records and breaks down 20 to 25 games a day. He pores through DirecTV scheduling and makes a list of everything available and then figures out how to get each game programmed into his arsenal of VCRs.

"You get a little numbering system down. You get a big sheet of paper, jot down every single game, channel and time, decide which VCRs you have available and start going down the list. You check them off and program each VCR one by one," he says.

Then all he has to do is break them all down into useful information and have that information at his fingertips, catalogued and ready and stored for years.

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