Why I love Friday nights

Thankfully, we've developed a stock response and finally gotten everyone on board.

"Can you tell me who won?"

"No, but our Web site can. Check it out at ...."

(The old ladies and men without internet are another story, but damn coach, bust out the Crackberry from the bar and look it the heck up)

Also:

*no ringing*

us: WHERE THE F ARE THE SCORES??!!?

 

Why I don't love Friday nights:
Went to a game between Nowhere Tech and BFE Central last night, at BFE Central.
I need a roster to cover the game, as I'm normally a college writer and have no idea who these teams are since I'm just pitching in on a Friday night.
There are at least 3-4 programs around the booth, which the locals have already appropriated for their own use.
I ask the PA guy: can I get a program?
"We don't have any more up here. I can fax you the rosters."
"Well, what good would that do me?"
"Oh, you need it right now?"
(Yes, genius).
"Well, you can take a picture of mine with your camera phone."
"No, that's not going to work."
"Well, I don't know what to tell ya."
Finally, I asked, loudly, if anyone could get me an extra program. Had one in five minutes, but it shouldn't have been that hard in the first place.
Gotta love Friday night football.

 

That sucks.
I called our BFE school and told them I was coming to cover them and they had rosters and starters and everything waiting for me.
Oh, and the press box I sat in - though it had a really annoying PA guy and spotters - had home-made brisket, veggies, sausage, potatos, homemade cookies and anything but alcohol to drink.
It was a pretty nice setup.

 

Ha! When I worked in West Texas, I had a five-hour road trip to cover a team ... in the same district. The other two road trips in the district were three-hour treks.

Once again: Texas is a big-ass state.
And a state with big asses. But that's beside the point.

 

I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but every high school football game in Texas features cheerleaders and drill team members selling programs to folks as they walk in.

Usually, you can talk them into giving you one for free. Back when I covered high schools, I made it a habit of taking a couple of extra bucks to the game and just buying one.

I guess there are places in the USA where schools don't have programs ready-made to sell. But those places aren't in Texas.

 

Oh, they have that here, too. I guess I'm a little spoiled with my college coverage, though, to want to pay four bucks for a program when all I need is the rosters in the middle. I usually just use the rosters from our high school preview tab, but in this case, Nowhere Tech is out of our coverage area. (And I don't mind spending my own cash at games - I always buy food and drink from the concession stand and never bill the paper for it, figure I'm helping the community). I just didn't like the attitude the guy gave me when he could have made one phone call and had someone get me a program without the run-around.

 

Yeah, that was kind of crappy.

Like I said, if you just tell whoever is selling the programs who you are, they will probably give you one for free in order to do your job. Sometimes, I've seen said, "The guys in the booth said you'd give me a program," even if, technically, the guys in the booth told me no such thing.

 

That is the one benefit of working around here, you're usually no more than a 20-minute drive from the office.

 

The ones I love are when you ask what the score was and you type it out as they say "Team A 16, Team B 77." I always repeat it back to them "So, it was Team B 77, Team A 16." Football coaches should know that the freaking winner is listed first. But how about this: I call another paper last night for a score and the brain surgeon I talk to says "Non-local team 16, Local team 26." A sports writer doesn't know better? She's got a great future in this business.

 

I hate asking what the score is and the caller doesn't tell me which team had what. And yes, Two Gloves, I always repeat scores given low score first in whatever sport. Just trying to make sure I get it right...






And being an incredible asshole at the expense of a caller whose team (sniff, sniff) LOST!!!

 

I ran mine over six times with the car.

But I also wish I had kept it.

 

A couple crazy Friday night stories:

-As an intern covering one of my first games, I was kicked out of the press box before finishing my story. This was before wireless. So I completed the story in my car, drove to the nearest subdivision, climbed over the security gate and started begging door to door. After three houses, a family finally let me in to use their phone line. Luckily they were newspaper subscribers and thought it was pretty cool. Anyway, I survived my first deadline and barely avoided trespassing charges.

-Another time, following a sizable upset, I asked a coach what motivated his team? His response was that they won because I picked against them in the paper. Um, coach, I can’t print that.

Fun times.