Saturday, September 14, 2019

Get 'em Next Week



So, week one has come and gone.

After a scoreless first quarter, Greenwich found themselves down 3-0 to Danbury before roaring to a 49-3 win.

I was ready in the booth. I swear.

I saw all of the old gang.

The rosters looked OK. Not great, but OK.

The equipment set up easily.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't show up at Cardinal Stadium expecting peace and quiet for setup. Literally, your only hope for peace is to be very early.

Which I was. I was there over three hours before kickoff.

So, thankfully, setup was sort of uneventful.

The sweat poured off of me as I crawled around, plugging into electricity and ethernet ports.

Soon, I was set. I went to the tailgate outside of the stadium and grabbed some food at the tailgate. (Note: thank you to everyone there).

All was good.

Then...the internet appeared to crap out.

Then...the Greenwich roster that I had printed was reprinted with new numbers.

OK, we'll survive.

Wound tighter than a baseball hit by Aaron Judge, I steadied myself as the theme music swelled.

The lump built in my throat as I thought about what it all meant to me.

But I could hear the theme music garbling -- a sure sign of internet problems.

Undeterred, I stayed the course and began talking as I felt my emotions push at me.

I was back. We were good.

I wasn't sure I would be back, but here we were.

I stumbled through pregame, having had too much time on my hands.

Then, as kickoff approached, I glanced at the field and saw number 42 for Danbury ready to kick off.

There was no number 42 on the Danbury roster.

I made the best of it, but it was frustrating.

Mostly, I'm mad at me for not pushing people for better information.

Yes, in a perfect world, rosters would be online and accurate. They weren't. It's on me to dig deeper.

So, to recap, the internet dropped on us occasionally and the rosters were a headache.

It was a typical day, I guess.

While it was not up to my standards, we still got the game on the air. We did our best, and there is far worse. Days like this can rattle confidence.

I'll get over it.

We'll see you next Friday night at Trumbull.

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