Never Forget the Fundamentals

[OverAndBack]

After you've done this for a while, you tend to take things for granted and one thing that was brought back to me this week was always to confirm with the school that there actually is a game on the date and at the time and place you have it on your calendar.

I got home last night after work and my girlfriend said, "Did you get your messages? Someone called and said you had a game tonight." Now, I'm scatterbrained about a lot of things, but not usually about my officiating schedule, and it's not so jam-packed that I'd overlook one. So I checked my state association's online schedule and, no, I wasn't supposed to work a game last night.

GF asked if they'd called my cell phone, and they said they did, but there were no missed calls on my cell. She said she thought the person had said one town, and it was the town where I had actually worked the night before, so I wasn't sure what the heck happened and figured I'd follow up with the state this morning.

But when I got into work, there was a message from the athletic secretary at the school where I thought I was working tonight apologizing because she had entered the wrong date in the computer and none of the four guys who were on the game (which we thought was tonight) showed up, but one guy DID show up who wasn't scheduled, just completely out of the blue. The school's AD was a longtime official, so he and the one guy and two coaches filled in and got through the game (apparently), because the opposing team had traveled several hours to get there and they had to play the game. There were no incidents.

So we were all at fault for not confirming with the school. Sometimes we might get too reliant on technology and stuff like this happens. Though your season may be coming to an end wherever you are, it never hurts to keep in your mind that the things we take for granted can often be the things we overlook and which cost us.