They finally let me out of the office and had me cover a high school football game on a Friday night. Even though I was covering a game I knew would be a blowout, I was still excited to watch high school boys tackling each other... I mean watch high school football in South Florida.
I got to the field almost an hour early. Talked to the coaches, watched the teams warm up and reminisced about my playing days.
As the teams headed back to the locker rooms, I went up to press box and realized I had already made my first mistake. Clearly before I took my stroll around the field, I should have claimed one of the four chairs in the press box.
Five minutes of standing in the west-facing press box with no air conditioning, I learned what was my second mistake. The west-facing aspect meant you get a beautiful view of the sunset. It also meant for the first hour the press box was essentially an oven. I had no way of wiping the sweat from pouring down my face besides my shirt sleeve. At least I was smart enough to wear one of my golf polos.
While I was setting up my notebooks to keep a play-by-play and stat sheet, I realize how spoiled I was covering games at UF, where they provide you with all that at your reserved seat in the air-conditioned press boxes with wireless internet connection.
The game ended up being a blowout, which made it pretty easy to write my story on deadline. I knew getting to see my story online and in print the next day would make all of this worth it. Oh wait, the paper only needed five inches (about 150 words). Well at least all of my hard work keeping score would be needed. Oh wait, the coaches called in their stats already.
Oh the joys of high school football.
