Trumbull? Again?

Jeff Alterman buzzed my phone this morning.

He was texting to see if I was interested in calling Trumbull's basketball playoff games tonight.

Tonight. Like, hours away.

I couldn't, I told myself. Focus on other duties. Host "Doubleheader" again.

A drive to Trumbull is not a short commitment.

Then I looked at the schedule. The Trumbull boys basketball team was going to host Fairfield Prep and the girls basketball team had Greenwich coming in.

Dammit. Duty. I have relationships with all three schools.

Suddenly, a peaceful Monday was gone.

I hustled. I pulled rosters together and made scoresheets. I looked for story lines.

I repacked basically all of the equipment.

I threw items on social media. Gotta promote, you know.

At one point, I literally had nine different text conversations going.

I had a quick lunch at home, did a few things around the house, told WGCH there would be no show and I was out the door.

As always, I slogged my way from Mahopac to Trumbull but was in the building roughly an hour before tipoff. It would have to do.

Jeff came along a few minutes later, with a hamburger I held him hostage for and his TEN equipment.

We threw it all together and made it on the air in time.

Trumbull lost in each game, thus assuring that neither coaches Buddy Bray or Steve Tobitsch want to see me around THS anytime soon but the broadcasts well about as well as they could go.

There remains this ridiculous notion that broadcasters need hours -- yes, hourS -- to prep for a game. They need to make charts and graphs and so on. They also get quite belligerent about it and feel you're an offense to mankind if you don't do the same.

Sure, I'd advise young broadcasters to do the same. Great.

In a perfect world, that's so lovely. I love nosing around for story lines, but given I don't have that luxury often, I've developed the skill that I don't need crazy preparation.

I get rosters. Pronunciations (though we struggle for time for that tonight also). I then rely on my computer or phone and, most of all, I rely on my brain to carry the day for everything else.

I had a tech problem. I literally couldn't get sound to my computer. Instead of panicking I kept trying different cables.

It worked.

It always works.

I drove home, comfortable with a job reasonably done.

The skill to adjust and call a game that I picked up just a few hours before air time is one that I'm proud of. I never thought it was anything special.

But I was ready.