The Results of last Weekend

I'm a bit behind on this one, but I did think that I didn't report on the last weekend of doing my retirement job. First of all, I got there a bit on the late side. It didn't seem to matter much, we got to the court well ahead of game time, but getting to the gym, I had something happen to me that I'd never ever had happen before in my 26 years of living. As I was leaving my aunt's house on the south side of town, and heading north down Main Street, I hit every stoplight possible red. I hit 21st, 18th, 14th, 9th, 5th, 3rd, Market Rd., and Highway 14 all red. The only two I missed were 4th and 2nd, only because they are synced with 5th and 3rd, so if one doesn't get you, the other one probably will. I've never had that happen before, so there went an extra 5 minutes off my arrival time, but I still made it.

The first quarter had me questioning my decision. I was doing fine, calling the game fine, but felt winded and tired already, and still had 7 quarters to go. I spoke with Mr. P, who referees volleyball in his spare time. We are both in agreement that he picked the right sport to referee. He moves a total of 6 feet, all game long. I do sports where we run 80 feet (or 80 yards in soccer) at a time. I told him during a timeout when he walked by how much smarter he was. Anyhow, I did survive just fine, had one controversy that we just skipped over since it was a meaningless JV game, and made the games run quickly. The deal that we would have had to deal with I would have handled properly if we'd have dealt with it, but it would have involved two technical fouls and massive confusion, so we just said it was a wash, no penalty and away we went. I would have dealt with it if it would have been a varsity contest, but it wasn't so we went on with the show.

After the game, I had my customary Valley Burger. It was well worth the work. I also got to see a great game for the boys side. It was quite exciting all the way. After we were done with the evening, I had a few people ask the same question, "You're really giving refereeing up?" It's true, I'm still giving it up on a varsity level. I'll help out again sometime, but I'm still going out. I will, however, keep soccer. While on the floor, I did think to myself how much I missed it. I'm not going to make that mistake with doing soccer games, those will stay.

I'm excited to make my return to the gym again tomorrow, this time in the broadcast booth. I've got the program and am studying up the names already to return to the play by play. 3 games, on 1210 KOKK and online at KOKK.com. We'll see you there!