Game -- any game -- On

From Thursday night at Fairfield Warde

I was offered three basketball games tomorrow.

It's the 8th Grade basketball finals in the Fairfield County Basketball League.

Funny thing about my business. A lot of "voices" would look down their noses at such a thing.

I remember having a similar discussion in the Facebook PBP group where there were several who had a problem doing junior varsity games.

Me? I learned a long time ago to not care about that. A game is a game. If it's organized and I can describe it, I'm going to treat it the same.

Oh, tomorrow's games will be more colloquial in nature, I suppose. Look, the basic approach will always be the same but it's a different kind of, er, scrutiny. That's the best word I can think of.

I always think back to the very first championships I did in the GYFL in Greenwich. At first, I wondered why we were doing such a thing. Why would me and the crew -- there were several of us that day -- go stand on the back of a flatbed truck hooked up to a generator and call three youth football games?

Then I saw the reaction and I got it. I've never looked back.

Junior varsity? Freshman? Babe Ruth League? Little League? Cal Ripken League?

Doesn't matter. They want a broadcaster and I'm going to bring them what I have.

I've come to understand that people actually sort of care. To some, I'm part of the soundtrack of their high school lives and that means so much.

They remember that touchdown, that home run, that goal, that three-point shot. They remember the championship --  win or lose.

They quote my call or remember something I've said about them.

I was talking with Mick McGowan today. You might know that we were supposed to call the CHSGHA Championship, originally scheduled for this weekend. Of course, the game got moved to Wednesday night and I couldn't be there as New Canaan and Darien played an epic contest.

I grumbled to him and he got it. He also agreed. He also reminded me of the very point I'm making.

"Just remember we are immortalized on some father's DVD to his daughter...that's what's keep us humble," he said. 

That's exactly what I'm talking about. He reminded me of how a father messaged me a few years ago and asked if he could have access to our audio call so he could lay it over the video of his daughter winning a title.

It meant a ton -- then and now.

So that's what I think about as I prep tonight. That these broadcasts matter to players and coaches but especially to parents and grandparents and beyond.

These aren't "just some 8th-grade games." These are games that would have meant the world to me to participate in.

I've been arranging notes and rosters all day -- three games tomorrow and two more on Monday back in the high school ranks. As I sit here tonight, I'm lacking rosters and notes for two of the six teams on the docket for tomorrow.

It will all work out.

From there, they're going to make memories.

I'm going to try to narrate it without getting in the way.