My March Madness

I had quite a few freelance jobs this last week. It started on Tuesday with a trip to Atherton HS in Louisville. Wazoosports had to do 6th region girls basketball. And I do mean had to. The powers that be told them, if they wanted to do the boys finals they had to televise some girls games. The Atherton games were the only ones that fit into wazoo’s schedule. An older gentleman ask me why we weren’t at Bellermine Univ. That’s where the good games are. I shrugged my shoulders and he said, “These are going to be the worst games in either region, boys or girls.” He was right. PRP 25, Central 56. Fairdale 40, Butler 58.

Thursday I went back up north to Miami U to work with Classic Teleproductions. A much tougher setup this time ‘round. I turned down the handheld camera and picked the crows nest. I didn’t realize that we were using cameras with real lenses.  Instead of one trip, with a small camera, up the stairs it was three, with two forty lbs cases and a large tripod. I just kept telling myself I was getting paid to exercise. I’m old enough to be smarter than this. I  couldn’t see the viewfinder so I used duct tape to mount it on the back of the camera. Classy.

 

Saturday was a long one. 6AM on the road to Richmond for the 11th region boys semi finals (12PM & 2PM) and girl’s finals (8PM). I got to direct these games, but I don’t remember much from them. They run together after awhile. There was a three hour gap between games because Wazoo was also doing the OVC women’s finals in in Nashville. That means I got home at 12:30 AM.

Monday it was off to run camera again, at Bellermine for the 6th & 7th region boys finals. The place was packed. For the second game all of the Male HS students couldn’t even get into the game. I took a break at halftime and there were about 100 students outside still waiting to get in. The game was delayed for about 20 minutes. Just before tipoff, for the first game, a popcorn machine caught fire in the lobby. They had to use a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. The fire alarm went off and the fire department showed up. There was no need to evacuate the crowd, but some of the smoke rolled into the gym and gave it eerie, humid look. Appropriate, ‘cause it was very hot. Better games though, Butler Iroquois in OT and Ballard came from behind to beat male 60-56.