Chip Shot: It’s auction time – be generous
February 13, 2021 at 4:02 a.m.
Chip Shot: It’s auction time – be generous
By Chip Davenport-
I asked myself, “What’s the rush to get beer at 7:00 a.m.?”
Then I quickly gave this transaction some perspective. I could clearly see this guy already put in an honest day’s work: third shift! The graveyard shift, some call it!
My dad was a pressroom foreman who worked the graveyard shift. It was customary for third-shift workers to stop at bars in the area where we lived. Some bars then, and probably now for that matter, were specifically tailored for guys and gals working shifts like these.
Halfway toward my destination I thought further, and realized… I’m just like that guy, the guy who waited three minutes to buy his beer!
Right now, I’m tapping my foot waiting for the release of Indiana high school enrollments on the IHSAA website. They are usually released every odd-numbered year in February. They were, however, released in January 2019, but I’m over that hurdle, properly managing expectations… wait for it… due to the pandemic.
So here I am, compulsively checking the IHSAA website every afternoon during lunch, and every evening after dinner for the high school enrollments release. If my daughter, Ellen, reads this morning’s column, she’ll walk by me on her way to fix a bowl of cereal, give me a patronizing pat on the shoulder, and say in a deadpan tone, “You don’t have any real worries, do you.”
She’ll add, to twist the dagger, “Gone, now, are a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back… you hack!”
The IHSAA enrollments launch the speculative volley of chat threads among high school sports nerds all over Indiana!
This downloadable file, this sports nerd gold, fuels speculation – mostly among football and basketball fans – regarding what the sectional alignments will be as schools move up or down due to enrollment, or tournament success factor. It’s also a launching pad for commiserating how ridiculously huge Carmel’s enrollment is getting!
Much like the next purchase time frame of Coors Light, those sectional alignments are like a more special brew sadly unavailable until April. At least we nerds can spend a seven- or eight-week time span speculating tournament alignments, like the careful apportionment of 24 cans of Coors Light one must make until the next window of opportunity opens.
Was that a simile or a metaphor? I think it was a simile because I used the word “like.”
February brings hope to high school sports nerds with the release of enrollment data, but it’s also time for some more immediate gratification in the form of Warsaw Tigers boys’ basketball. The orange and black host the Wabash Apaches for their regular season’s last home game.
Although the two teams have headed in comparatively different directions this year, catch the action tonight! The pandemic level is orange, permitting attendance for another evening with 25% allowable capacity. If you get in the gate, be of good cheer. High school basketball gate admission is pure gold these days.
I’m enjoying the team’s journey toward learning who they are as much as I’m enjoying their style of play. They even exude a sense of urgency when they ratchet down a bit into an offensive set similar only in formation, not pace, to four-corner sets we’ve seen in seasons past.
It’s such slower sets we’ve seen in past years triggering the late Winter/early Spring high school shot clock debate. I hope there is no high school shot clock while I am alive. Teenage boys and girls collectively don’t shoot well because they either haven’t taken 10,000 shots in their driveway yet, or they just don’t shoot well, so let’s not rush them on game day.
Finally, high school sports gate revenue is suffering severely this year! This revenue stream is their life blood. Unfortunately, there is a misnomer that athletic programs receive all the funding they need for operations from the school’s budget.
Here’s the reality!
Participation is at very high levels, but the 2020-2021 school year will reap very low gate revenue, and the athletic department is feeling the crunch. I strongly believe, furthermore, they are greatly aware the pandemic has blindsided many area families.
If you have the means to do so, the Warsaw Tiger athletic department needs whatever painless contributions you can make toward their offerings in an on-line “We Are Tigers” auction between Thursday February 25th at 5:00 p.m. to Sunday February 28th at 5:00 p.m.
Here we are, reader and columnist, preparing to part again on another Saturday morning. My 13th, in fact, without setting the newspaper office’s trash cans on fire… yet!
If you’re in my daughter’s camp, ready to quip, “Gone, now, are a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back… you hack!”, let it be known between panning and praising, I equally like both!
Indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love!
I asked myself, “What’s the rush to get beer at 7:00 a.m.?”
Then I quickly gave this transaction some perspective. I could clearly see this guy already put in an honest day’s work: third shift! The graveyard shift, some call it!
My dad was a pressroom foreman who worked the graveyard shift. It was customary for third-shift workers to stop at bars in the area where we lived. Some bars then, and probably now for that matter, were specifically tailored for guys and gals working shifts like these.
Halfway toward my destination I thought further, and realized… I’m just like that guy, the guy who waited three minutes to buy his beer!
Right now, I’m tapping my foot waiting for the release of Indiana high school enrollments on the IHSAA website. They are usually released every odd-numbered year in February. They were, however, released in January 2019, but I’m over that hurdle, properly managing expectations… wait for it… due to the pandemic.
So here I am, compulsively checking the IHSAA website every afternoon during lunch, and every evening after dinner for the high school enrollments release. If my daughter, Ellen, reads this morning’s column, she’ll walk by me on her way to fix a bowl of cereal, give me a patronizing pat on the shoulder, and say in a deadpan tone, “You don’t have any real worries, do you.”
She’ll add, to twist the dagger, “Gone, now, are a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back… you hack!”
The IHSAA enrollments launch the speculative volley of chat threads among high school sports nerds all over Indiana!
This downloadable file, this sports nerd gold, fuels speculation – mostly among football and basketball fans – regarding what the sectional alignments will be as schools move up or down due to enrollment, or tournament success factor. It’s also a launching pad for commiserating how ridiculously huge Carmel’s enrollment is getting!
Much like the next purchase time frame of Coors Light, those sectional alignments are like a more special brew sadly unavailable until April. At least we nerds can spend a seven- or eight-week time span speculating tournament alignments, like the careful apportionment of 24 cans of Coors Light one must make until the next window of opportunity opens.
Was that a simile or a metaphor? I think it was a simile because I used the word “like.”
February brings hope to high school sports nerds with the release of enrollment data, but it’s also time for some more immediate gratification in the form of Warsaw Tigers boys’ basketball. The orange and black host the Wabash Apaches for their regular season’s last home game.
Although the two teams have headed in comparatively different directions this year, catch the action tonight! The pandemic level is orange, permitting attendance for another evening with 25% allowable capacity. If you get in the gate, be of good cheer. High school basketball gate admission is pure gold these days.
I’m enjoying the team’s journey toward learning who they are as much as I’m enjoying their style of play. They even exude a sense of urgency when they ratchet down a bit into an offensive set similar only in formation, not pace, to four-corner sets we’ve seen in seasons past.
It’s such slower sets we’ve seen in past years triggering the late Winter/early Spring high school shot clock debate. I hope there is no high school shot clock while I am alive. Teenage boys and girls collectively don’t shoot well because they either haven’t taken 10,000 shots in their driveway yet, or they just don’t shoot well, so let’s not rush them on game day.
Finally, high school sports gate revenue is suffering severely this year! This revenue stream is their life blood. Unfortunately, there is a misnomer that athletic programs receive all the funding they need for operations from the school’s budget.
Here’s the reality!
Participation is at very high levels, but the 2020-2021 school year will reap very low gate revenue, and the athletic department is feeling the crunch. I strongly believe, furthermore, they are greatly aware the pandemic has blindsided many area families.
If you have the means to do so, the Warsaw Tiger athletic department needs whatever painless contributions you can make toward their offerings in an on-line “We Are Tigers” auction between Thursday February 25th at 5:00 p.m. to Sunday February 28th at 5:00 p.m.
Here we are, reader and columnist, preparing to part again on another Saturday morning. My 13th, in fact, without setting the newspaper office’s trash cans on fire… yet!
If you’re in my daughter’s camp, ready to quip, “Gone, now, are a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back… you hack!”, let it be known between panning and praising, I equally like both!
Indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love!
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