Floor Markings

[Stat-Man]

Ref Ump Welsch - The gym you described sounds like our current home gym for CYO. An adjoining school closed two years ago, but the parish lets us rent their gym since we have none. The gym is narrow enough that the three point line meets the side line.

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Now, it's time for my story about the smallest gym I've ever been in.

When my "career" staterted 25 years ago, we had a home and home scrimmage series with an area Montessori Academy. Apparently, they must not have played many games or had much of a sports program because they actually brought cheerleaders with them when they scrimmaged us at our gym. I remeber my friend (who was my co-student manager) and I asking each other "who brings cheerleaders to a scrimmage?"

When we went to their gym the following week, coach asked that only the reserve players go so that they could get more playing time and experience. I still remember walking into the gym and seeing that it was so small that the free throw circles intersected with the large half court circle.

They didn't have a scorer, so I ended up having to do the scorebook. Thank goodness my dad had taught me the basics during that first year of mine. To make things even more interesting, some of the home players were listed in the book with no number since they didn't have jerseys, just team warmups.

In lieu of a scoreboard, they had some bulletin board behind the table where some lady would manually adjust the score by putting up cards with the numbers on them. The clock was a football timer and what looked a bicycle horn you had to blow to signal subs or the end of the period.

Since the kitchen was also adjoining the gym, every time Montessori scored, people inside the kitchen would bang on pots and pans.

We ended up playing six periods. We got outscored in the first four, but we ended up winning the final two. Not too bad for playing our second and third units exclusively. Final results notwithstanding, the experience was definitely priceless!

I also remember on the drive back home (I can't remmeber if my dad drove players or if I was driven by other parents), some of the players were saying "If they join our league, they need a real gym!"