I must be insane
 

My day:

I left the house at 4:10PM. Drove into some terrible traffic, picked up my partner, and drove 115 miles to work a boys varsity game. The last 25 miles was on a county road that's covered with snow. And it was snowing. We arrived at 6:50PM.

Worked the game. Started at 7:40 as the JV game went OT. Visiting team won 61-29. Total of 18 fouls, no bonus either half. In the car by 9. Now 90 miles from home having a cheeseburger. It will be midnight before I get home.

Yeah, we do this for the money.

I'm glad we don't work anything farther than 60 miles away.

Had a lot of Vermont nights like that, but without the partner. Have a DH in town tomorrow night. I probably go 70-75 miles max one way now. Was about 40 miles away on Monday, but it seemed a lot farther.

It probably seems too close now.

We'll see. Back there in January twice. Maybe they've repaired the road.

Had a girls JV/V night tonight 10 miles from home. Left at 5:00 and was home around 9:00. :D

I just got home now. 12:40AM.

In the end, it was a good night. The visiting team is one I see often, and I've always had a good relationship with the head coach and the coaching staff. The home coach was a good sport the whole night -- he was getting waxed and took it in good humor. The AD is a (I believe, if he isn't he should be) Hall of Fame football coach who managed to stick some extra mileage money on the check because I was moved to this game at the last minute. And neither coach said a word the entire game, I got a fabulous workout as they ran me up and down the court well, and if we shot 10 free throws the entire game, I'd be surprised.

Of course, the ironic thing is that out of the 5 games I had/have this week, 4 are 3-person girls games and the one game where we got to run hard was the boys game tonight, worked 2-person.

Off to bed. Back at it tomorrow. Only about 75 miles from the house. I'm only driving about 15 miles of it, though, before I meet the driver.

Years and years ago (before MTD, Jr. was even in grade school), I worked the women's side of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference. I was the only Ohio official in the conference. Lots of Wednesday night games in December and January; minimum two hours to the nearest college for a 7pm or 7:30pm start. Ah, to be young again and have hair. :D

MTD, Sr.

There Should Be A Rule ...
 

Been there. Done that. I hate it when that happens.

Wow, you don't often see one team get outplayed that badly in a 4 minute overtime period!! :D

What time was scheduled tipoff? If you left at 4:15, picked up partner and then drove 115 miles It sounds like you were cutting it close? Working the Chicago area for usually scheduled week day 7:00 o'clock starts with uncertain weather conditions, I need to leave around 4ish myself, and that's for 35-40 miles distances on occasion.

Being in rural areas you probably have a better sense of travel time. Chicago, you just never know what to expect. Had a date a few weeks ago 8 miles from home, took me almost 45 minutes.

Wow! I will never complain about Houston traffic again.

I'm working another chapter this year that is pretty far out, though I think my furthest drive this year is about 60 miles from work. I don't envy you folks with these really long drives.

In a perfect world, I would've left at 3:30 or so, but I do have a day job. :D

The 115 miles included the drive to pick up the partner. I ran into some ungodly (in Madison terms) traffic and had to detour after calling my partner and telling him to move to another place to wait for me. Then the unexpected 25 miles of snow-covered county roads added another 15-20 minutes to the trip, since I averaged 30-35 MPH instead of 60+.

In the end, we got there with 3:35 left in the 4th quarter, were dressed before regulation ended, and had to sit through an overtime period. Then there was the confrontation between the home (losing) JV coach and one of the officials on the way off the floor. That was a lot of fun. Actually, since that coach was a varsity assistant, it was a little fun watching him fume all through the warmups while sitting on the bench.

I grew up in a rural area. If something was 20 miles away, you knew you could drive there in about 20 minutes (unless the weather was bad). Now that I live in a big city, there's nothing that annoys me more then driving on a multi-lane freeway at speeds under 50 MPH.

If I'm going to spend 2 hours driving to a game, I'd much rather drive 110 miles then drive 20 miles in those 2 hours. But that's just me.

Alternatively, as one of the veterans officials in our association is fond of saying "If I told you there was $75 under a rock 100 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could drive 100 miles and spend 2 hours officiating a basketball game in front of a hostile crowd for that same $75, you'd do it."

My biggest fear is a game at new school with a little distance. You never know what to expect. GPS is a stress reliever but the fear of the unknown is still there. I also have a day job and on occasion cut it too close.

Bob Jenkins said it best. Allow yourself enough time, so if you're late, you're not

I've been to this school a dozen times. Probably 3-4 times for football and 7-10 times for basketball over the 9 years I've lived here. Sometimes, with the weather and snow, you just get there when you get there. I have never showed up so late that the game didn't start on time. Well, except once when a local school snuck in a 6:30PM start and I never noticed on the contract. :D

Quite frankly, although I try to arrive at 6:30PM for a 7:30PM start, getting there last night at 6:50PM was a victory, not a defeat. And the AD, on seeing me, started laughing and asked me about our drive. The visiting assistant (who has always been friendly to me) saw me walk in with my bag and *he* started laughing, saying it figured that tonight I'd have to drive so far to work.

It's funny, though, how you rush, rush, rush, and then you end up sitting through OT and also through the 20 minutes where you do nothing but stand there watching kids not dunk (amongst other things).

My check ended up being for $120 (which I think is the biggest HS check I've seen for a regular season game) and my expenses (I figure) were about $35 for gas and $15 for food and a brew on the way home. So it wasn't terrible.

"You can observe a lot by watching"
 

Sounds like something Yogi would say. Do we call this a bob-ism?

I've had a lot of senior NCO's use the same phrase; and I don't think any of them know bob.

My college coach said it even simpler: If you're on time, you're late.

And he proved it after one particularly irksome loss out of town. Somehow I was one of just two players to make it to his van the next morning a little ahead of time for the four-hour ride home. He, an assistant and we two players occupied his eight-person van.

We got home well before the other van -- with 12 other players and two coaches crammed in it -- did.

Vince Lombardi used a saying sumthin' like that (mad rush by the young un's to Google Vince Lombardi).

Isn't he the guy in Law and Order: Criminal Intent?

"With a Little Help from My Friends"
 

Dan Lauria, the dad in "The Wonder Years", is playing Lombardi on Broadway.

http://www.playbill.com/images/photo...1287607612.jpg

Algonquin Rd.?

This is somewhat travel related. I had a JV/V boys night tonight about 40 miles from home. I get ready to leave in time to pick one partner up so we would be there about 45 minutes before tip off. I go to put my bag in the trunk, but my keyless entry remote won't open the trunk, so I have to use the key. I get in to start the car.....nothing. I realize that I had left the parking lights on for a few hours and the battery was drained. Luckily my neighbor across the street was home and he gave me a jump. We still got there 35 minutes before the start, but I was about to have a heart attack when I turned the key and heard absolutely nothing.

Paraphrasing: (trying to remember what I read in Jerry Kramer's book about 40 years ago) The Lombardi clock is twenty minutes ahead of the real clock. If you're twenty minutes early, you're on time. If you're ten minutes early, you're the last one there. If you're on time, you're late.

Learned it in my early military days too.....
 

"Lombardi time" is the principle that one should arrive 10–15 minutes early, or else be considered late.

My Alma matter compensated for that by starting classes 10 after the hour. :D

I used to live in the Chicago area, and remember without fondness 90 min drives to HS games.
Now that I live in South New Jersey, where we get almost no snow and most games are 30 min away, no more complaints from me!!

Roy

Especially if I have never been to a school before, I give myself a half hour of 'getting lost time'. It takes the pressure off.

Every school I work at is at least 50 miles from work, so I have to give myself plenty of time to account for traffic accidents.