Daily Limit: In any event, Lopez

As director of event operations at B.A.S.S., Eric Lopez works to make the Classic and Elite Series events run smoothly.

B.A.S.S. EVENT DIRECTOR ON TOP OF GAME

Like the roadies in Jackson Browne’s song “The Load-Out,” Eric Lopez and his team are the “first to come and the last to leave” at Bassmaster events.

Unlike the roadies, Lopez ain’t “working for that minimum wage.” He’s the director of event operations at B.A.S.S. and literally runs the shows.

And like roadies, his efforts often go unnoticed by fans, yet those he works for sure appreciate them.

Lopez is a major asset at B.A.S.S. as his experience and knowledge putting on large events has helped the Classic and Elite Series events run smoothly for the past 17 years.

“People always ask me how a guy from inner city Chicago ended up in charge of B.A.S.S. events,” he said, adding that’s a long story weaved through major international events. “I ended up here because I was willing to take a risk.”

“I was following the safe path, the same path everyone around me was following. I was going to school for a business degree. The end result would be working in a bank in a big city somewhere. I knew the money was there, but that path seemed very boring. I got the degree but figured out a way to put it to use in another industry that seemed a lot more interesting.”

Lopez had compiled an impressive resume in event coordination before a chance meeting with JM Associates people in Lake Placid, N.Y. One of them, Angie Thompson, is now B.A.S.S. VP of events and sponsorship activation, and she has Lopez to thank for keeping her stress levels down.

“What he brings is the experience from so many big venues, and he’s really unflappable,” she said. “Five years ago when I started working the event side, that first Classic I was very, very nervous … second Classic I was kind of nervous.

“Now I don’t worry about it because Eric is so good. No matter what goes wrong, he always figures out a solution. He’s unflappable. Never stresses out. I can’t speak highly enough about him.”

Lopez, second from right, oversees all aspects of Elite Series events and Classics “outside the lines of the playing field.”

Lopez’s resume does that talking. The nature of his chosen field has bounced him from big event to bigger event. He’s worked World Cup Soccer, Olympics, Special Olympics, Goodwill Games and ESPN’s X Games, as well as special venues like the 2000 “America’s Millenium.”

How he got on that path is somewhat of a fluke.

BLUE DEMON GETS HIS KICKS

Lopez said he was in the right place at the right time when the World Cup came to Chicago in 1994. He was attending DePaul University and a number of students volunteered to work games at Soldier Field. He impressed management by asking to go work in a warehouse.

“I learned purchasing, inventory control and how to drive trucks and forklifts,” he said. “It was back breaking work but I enjoyed being behind the scenes and be partly responsible for all the equipment used to make a world class event.”

Making himself valuable led to getting hired on for the summer, and that earned him work the following year at the U.S. Olympic Festival. He went to Denver for a week and ending up being asked to stay the entire summer. An offer to work the 1996 Olympics followed.

It was then he thought this line of work was something to pursue, but he’d have to break from the family’s profession. His father and brother were accountants, and he was on that path studying business management. To take the job at the Atlanta Olympics, Lopez had to postpone college but promise his father he’d accelerate studies when he returned.

Lopez was the last full-time Olympics employee hired, yet at 20 wasn’t even old enough to sign his official documents. His job was lofty as well – helping oversee equipment logistics in a million-square-foot warehouse with a thousand workers. He supervised a key staff of seven, all more than twice his age.

Lopez questioned the man who put him in that position.

“I’m not the person you want in charge of all this. He said, ‘Yes, you’re exactly it,’” Lopez said. “He took a huge risk on me. It was a turning point in my career.”

Anchoring that career was a decision he made soon after finishing college. Lopez was weighing job offers in the banking industry when he received an opportunity to work the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Raleigh, N.C.

“They said it’s a ‘2 1/2-year job, you’re going to be paid s*#% and we have a place for you to stay with six other people’ – sign me up,” he said. “This offer was literally a third of what the banks were offering. It was that point I realized you could make a career out of the event industry.”

Lopez visits other events, like last year’s Boston Marathon, to get new perspectives. And he’s a runner.

He was in charge of a large region, working logistics and shipping for the venues at Chapel Hill and Duke. He left that knowing “This is my career.”

PHOTO WITH BONO A NO-NO

The Special Olympics opened other doors, among them a once-in-a-millennium gig for the Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. Lopez rubbed elbows with the political hierarchy and marquee celebrities at “America’s Millennium,” a Quincy Jones produced show for CBS on New Year’s Eve 1999.

Lopez’s job was to help orchestrate the travel of celebrities and politicians using 65 limos and buses. He met the likes of Jones, Will Smith, Usher, Jack Nicholson, Kelsey Grammer and Bono, among others. He had full-on conversations with many as he worked with them and their people to get each to rehearsal, back to hotels, to the show at the Lincoln Memorial then to the White House for an all-night after party.

“While this was going on, we weren’t sure if there was going to be Y2K. Was everything going to shut down? Are we going to lose power?” he said. “It was interesting being in D.C. that close to government while there was that unknown still lurking.”

As a worker, asking for an autograph or a photo with a celebrity was a definite no-no. Lopez said he was only tempted to get a shot with Bono, but he refrained.

LOPEZ IS NOT A DEAF UBER DRIVER

Lopez did get a photo of himself with actor Harrison Ford years later. Every once in a while, the picture has surfaced in a Facebook meme. Although that meme hijacks the image, Lopez said he can’t get too upset about it.

“It’s a little annoying,” he said. “It’s funny. The annoying part is so many people see it now who know me through some other person, and they’re like, ‘Did you know?’ Yeah, I know.”

The photo, shot when the actor was being honored in 2008 for work in the outdoors, is real. The meme, supposedly written by Ford saying this deaf Uber driver became overwhelmed that he had Googled and learned how to sign thank you, is fake. 

Lopez posed with Harrison Ford at a 2008 outdoors banquet where the actor was honored for his work in the outdoors.

It has garnered tons of positive responses from people touched by Ford’s supposed kind actions that made the deaf driver’s day. Lopez said the last time it surfaced the post had 75,000 likes and thousands of comments. He now pretty much resists setting the record straight.

“The part I feel bad about is it’s a heartwarming topic,” he said. “Seeing all the comments, seeing all the mothers saying ‘My kid was in tears, such a beautiful story.’”

The Daily Limit did a post on it in November, 2015.

CHICAGO KID GETS OUTDOORS

After his White House gig, Lopez worked for media mogul Ted Turner at his Winter Goodwill Games. He moved to Atlanta for the planning then set up camp in Lake Placid for five months. A group from JM Associates and ESPN was also in town, and a mutual connection introduced Lopez to Jerry McKinnis and crew.

Needing his talents, they asked him to stay over and help them start up the Great Outdoor Games. That became a success and led to Lopez landing a full-time job with ESPN and also working on the X Games.

“After ESPN purchased it, the B.A.S.S. property kept growing so much that we became a dedicated ESPN Outdoors department,” he said. “They said take what you’ve been doing for the Olympics, World Cup soccer, the X Games, and now apply all that to B.A.S.S.

“We want to make sure we have standards in place, from a safety standpoint, fan field standpoint – try to elevate the event components.”

Lopez said he’s asked all the time and find it kind of odd that the self-proclaimed “city person” found himself working in the outdoors.

“I’ve never log rolled in my spare time. I’ve never skied down a mountain doing 90 miles an hour,” he said. “From my side of the business, it doesn’t really matter what the event is. You just have to understand it, appreciate it.

“There are a lot of similarities that cross all events. That’s why I was brought in, to do that with B.A.S.S. Now I’ve grown to love the sport and fully understand it and speak on behalf of the sport. That’s in a nutshell how I ended up with B.A.S.S. I love it. I love the challenge.”

Lopez snaps some photos from atop a B.A.S.S. tournament vehicle.

OUTSIDE THE LINES

Since most are familiar with baseball, Lopez uses an analogy to describe his purview at B.A.S.S.

“Anything that takes place inside the base lines are Trip’s (Weldon) responsibility,” he said. “He has to make sure there’s a field of play, that there are athletes competing. There are rules and regulations. That there’s some type of system of scoring, that there’s prize money.

“Anything that takes place outside those base lines falls under my area. I have to make sure there’s a stadium, that the spectators can go somewhere, that there are things for them to do and that they’re safe.”

Once the venue sites are decided, Lopez springs into action to plan and map out everything, and even coordinate with Weldon and the TV people.

“I work with the cities on building the actual event,” he said. “We’re the ones who go in first and say, ‘OK, where are we going to do this? How are we doing to do this?’ Anything that takes places, with the exception of the tournament, somehow touches one of my areas.”

Those duties include all the logistics involved in the design, building, setup and breakdown for the tournament and expo. He also must acquire and activate all the volunteers and security, have signage made and placed, and much more.

“It’s a big team, but that all rolls up into me. We’re doing with very few people, a lot of work,” he said of Ben Ashby, manager of event operations and sponsorship activations, and Jesse Dolan, the operations associate. “That’s why the people I’ve brought on are key. We’ll turn an empty field into an Elite Series venue for four days then tear it down. We’re the first ones there and the last ones to leave.

“My goal is for no one to have any clue there was a major event there. I want the venue owners to almost kind of lose track of where they’re standing. To me that’s a sign of success – we took this blank slate and created a whole other world on their property.”

TALL ORDER IN MINUTE MAID

The 2017 GEICO Bassmaster Classic in Houston presents Lopez and B.A.S.S. some new issues. For the first time, the weigh-ins are being held in a Major League Baseball facility, the Astros’ Minute Maid Park.

Classic weigh-ins have traditionally been held in arenas, with incredible light shows. Lopez said the retractable roof stadium with a huge wall of windows will force B.A.S.S. to adjust to a daylight atmosphere.

They are not letting out any secrets, but McKinnis just wrote a column telling folks that “You need to be there.” In the next Daily Limit, we’ll interview Lopez about what fans can expect at the Classic.