Gi-normous tournament coming up

[Mark Padgett]

Just got my first notification of the annual Northwest President's Day middle school tournament coming up Feb 13-16. Last year, there were over 350 tourney games on 20 floors. Since not all the local "elite" MS teams participate, we also had league games on another 12 floors so the total was almost 440 games in four days! Games run from 8 am until 8 pm. We use officials from Portland, Salem, Seattle, Tacoma and points in-between. It's the largest basketball tournament of any kind in Oregon (so I've been told).

You don't get scheduled more that 4 games without a break but, conceivably, you can get as many as 8 in one day. I actually prefer working the league games since they pay more than the tourney games, but either is fun.

I'm already stocking up on Thermacare patches and painkillers.