I know people's schedules are starting to wind down, so I thought I would share this story. I had a game a couple of weeks ago that was the last regular season game for these two small schools. The home team was playing for the outright league championship, the visitors were above .500, so we anticipated a good game. The stands were packed because it was Senior Night. It was a great game - the players played, the coaches coached, we reffed, the fans cheered. After the game in the locker room, my partners and I were discussing, like the commercial, life doesn't get any better than this. (Well, except for the fact that one partner found out his job was eliminated earlier that day. But that's another story.) Anyway, we're basking a little in the warm glow of a fun evening, when the home coach comes in and tells us we did a good job, thanks for coming, etc. Also, would we want to have some cake? They had some cake and ice cream brought in for Senior Night, and he thought we might like some as well. We said thanks, maybe we would. We still needed to shower and dress, so I figured there wouldn't be any left by the time we were done.
Well, we got done about 15-20 minutes later, and went down the hall to the cafeteria. When we got there, the place was packed - I'm sure the whole town was in there. We stood in the doorway, and my first instinct was to turn and run - after all, fans and refs mixing after a game has "disaster" written all over it, right? My partner, who was obviously hungrier than I was, said "Let's get some cake!" So we went in, some people pointed us in the direction of the food line and we got our cake and ice cream. As I was walking back to the seats, I noticed we had even been in line before the parents, because they had been waiting for the players to get dressed. We sat down in an inconspicuous corner, and enjoyed the heck out of our cake. We even talked to a couple of parents, and had a good time before we thanked the coach and left.
Has anyone else had a similar experience mingling with the fans after a game? Should I have gone with my first instinct and left, so there wouldn't be any problems? Or should I feel guilty about my guilt, and just enjoyed the moment more?
Oh, I should mention, the home team won by 30 in case that has any affect on the answers...
