Press Box ejections

When I was a kid there were gyms like that all over rural Kansas. Refs always went over the local restraining line "ground rules" with captains before the games.n

 

Covered one school so tiny not only did it have only five rows of bleacher seats on each side and a stage at one end of the court, the scorer's table was on the back row of the bleachers.

 

Have one school where there are bleachers with about 4 rows on just one sideline and a stage at one end. The end with the stage also has a rack of lights above the basket inside a cage. The cage can't be more than 20 feet off the ground so if players shoot a 3 a little too high the ball is clanking off that metal.

 

When I played in high school, we used the old high school gymnasium on occasion - and by old, I mean the school closed down in the '50s and was then used as town offices.

The lights were all caged off there, too, both on the walls and the ceiling. One baseline had the stage behind it, where they would wheel in temporary bleachers for spectators (which were always family and friends). The other baseline was directly against the wall, which was fitted with nails and hooks in which staffers hung these large blue removable bags as padding. Oddly, there was plenty of room for a scorer's table and two benches on the one sideline. The other only had enough room to walk down.

The locker room was the creepiest place, too. There were a number of janitorial buckets and mops always stacked up in the showers and the urinals were the old style that went all the way into the floor. Legend had it that it was haunted, and everyone believed it.

I haven't thought of this in so many years. I'm glad this thread meandered this way.

 

Pretty sure most high school locker rooms are haunted by the spirits of kids who suffocated after being shoved in lockers or expired from an excessive wedgie. Plus the smell.

 

One of our bigger local high schools replaced its old wooden bleachers with newer metal and plastic ones a few years ago. Unfortunately, they forgot to measure how far out the new bleachers should come and missed by a couple of feet. So, if you were sitting at the scorer's table your seat was actually on the first row of bleachers. You had people constantly banging into you trying to get to the other side, knees in your back, and just a general comfort level of minus-7 if you had to sit there for a three-hour girls-boys doubleheader.
They finally fixed it this year and keep that front row retracted, but the whole experience encouraged me to learn how to shoot basketball so I'd have an excuse to stand on the baseline and move around instead of dealing with that all night.

 

At the old Roberts Center at BC, where they played until the later '80s, the press seats were so close to the endline the photographers had to shoot from the other side. It was a terrible place to work, but a great place to watch a game.

 

What do you call a press box without press?

 

This has been coming for years. Nothing will stop it either.

 

100 percent agreed. I would have had no problem with slipping over to the team side if I had the opportunity. The pay is better. There's job security. I don't think I realized how bad it had gotten in newspapers until I got out, honestly.

 

I dig it.

 

I have one better. The former local junior hockey had a borderline call go against them...The fans were upset, players and coaches were. At the media timeout shortly thereafter, the referees go to the referee's crease to get some water. The press box over hangs the referee's crease and the penalty boxes so I hear the whole exchange. The "off ice league official" manning one of the penalty box's opens the door to see what the officials needed. The referees asks for some water. The off ice personnel goes "You don't deserve any water." Next thing you know the guy with who has a league issued jacket on is getting the boot. #ImisstheQ