I was a member of Toastmasters International, a speaking and communication club affording several opportunities to improve the aforementioned skills along with improving brevity.
Brevity (chuckle)… still working on that at age 60.
The first two Toastmaster speeches each member must do are the easiest: introduce yourself in the first speech and speak about a topic with considerable conviction in the second speech.
The latter, as suggested by Toastmaster mentors, is performed best when the topic you choose ticks you off.
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this Sunday morning (October 6), so I’m not ticked off, but I’m irritated enough, and currently losing the battle with my compulsion to rant, but I’ll also rave.
Each of us have scholastic sports seasons ranging from favorite and least favorite whether you’re an athlete, an athlete’s parent, a fan, or an event worker.
I want each of you to know I have a love-hate relationship with the spring sports season.
I appreciate the agility of athletic departments in the area to turn on a dime rescheduling events postponed or in worse cases cancelled due to weather. It’s hard to line up transportation in a tight schedule in a season where at least one event home or away is going on all day during a season that lasts 12 weeks, and maybe 13 weeks among baseball, golf, and softball.
My greatest irritant of spring sports is - in this already compressed schedule - most of these sports have no finite finish, no clock.
Golf, baseball, softball, and tennis come to mind. Track and field, on the other hand, has a predictable range of completion time even when the competition levels in each event are disparate.
I’ll steal Monty Python’s Flying Circus alum Eric Idle’s joke used to describe the earliest Saturday Night Live sketches to opine on tennis.
What is the difference between life and a tennis match? Life doesn’t last forever.
Those who are fans or parents of tennis athletes have greater knowledge of the game, and understandably beg to differ from my opinion.
Fine. This is my opinion column, not yours.
Softball games shortened in innings by a 10-run rule (after five innings) often run painfully long when some offensive bursts by the leading team – especially sprinkled with excess walks and passed balls, and fielding errors – cannot be extinguished without a merciful opponent leaving their base(s) early.
Track and field’s upside includes no rain cancellations, and the sensible adherence to thunder and lightning protocols benefit everyone present.
Outdoor fall sports, set in my favorite scholastic sports season, also operate in this manner with the exception of tennis. You already read my tennis convictions.
Soccer’s mercy rule is perfect. It affords the athletes at least 60 minutes field action and stops the bleeding of the side getting eviscerated.
If a side leads by 9 or more goals before the 60th minute, the game is automatically terminated at the 60th minute. Otherwise, any goal putting the leading side ahead by 9 goals after the first mercy firewall results in immediate termination of the match.
Football’s mercy rule works well, and a long football game does not bother me because it’s usually a final stop in my evening plans, and I love calling a football game more than anything else I enjoy calling among other sports.
Since there is only one varsity football game per week the longing for the day to arrive is a one-to-two-week groundswell of anticipation, and there are only four to six or seven home games for most area football teams per season.
If you’re wondering which sport PA announcers cling onto with a death grip, missing only in the most severe of circumstances, it’s football. The typical single digit announcing reps in a given season makes each game behind the mic the most precious among all sports.
Fall’s sole indoor sport, girls’ volleyball, even with its win-by-two individual sets and the possibility of a five-set match (best three out of five, in fact), starts and ends in reasonable time.
Furthermore, a five-set match between two good teams will be long in the best way due to long rallies and at least 48 rally points scored in the tightest sets, but volleyball fans are getting a lot of bang for their buck and enjoying an exciting match.
It’s like bonus volleyball for the price of admission.
Two bad volleyball teams reaching a five-set match still end in reasonable time and seem bearable due to greater amounts service errors and aces, and rallies lasting no more than one or two volleys across the net.
Boys’ volleyball in the spring of 2025 will be a refreshing change to spring sports: a reasonably paced, predictably timed sport, reasonable but not rigid point limits in lieu of a clock, and it’s played indoors.
Winter sports – other than the possibility of dicey weather traveling to the venue – are fine with me. Each sport I announce for seems to end too soon after it starts, especially wrestling.
Wrestling, in fact, is the most challenging sport to remain calm inside for me even while I call it because any wrestler who makes a consequential decision placing them almost completely on their back – no matter how far ahead they are – faces the possibility of being pinned.
Wrestling is the consummate “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” sport.
I also announce NAIA collegiate basketball, and most of the events are men’s/women’s doubleheaders. It’s perfect for me because announcing a single basketball game is like eating moderate portions of Chinese food. You’ll be hungry again too soon.
With this said, I’m no longer irritated. Now I’m hungry.