Pregame

As I write this, I am sitting, waiting for the quarterfinals of the North Sub-Section of Section 6A girls basketball to begin. My friends, let me tell you, the anticipation is building in the arena, and within this humble sports writer. Well, maybe in the arena. I have never seen either two teams play. Subsequently, I know nothing about either team. With that being said, it should be an exciting game for me.
I have lost count of the number of different teams I have seen play during the past few months. Covering North Dakota and Minnesota, boys and girls, class A and B, I have seen my fair share of teams. It is a rare treat for me to see the same team twice, thereby having some idea of what to expect from a given team.
I suppose that seeing so many different teams and players is nice. It adds diversity and keeps the viewing from getting stagnate. It is fun to travel to many different arenas and see different fans. I get to compare all the different aspects of a game, from the version of the Star Spangled Banner, to if and how big of a pep band plays, from listening to an announcer/scorer show enthusiasm for his or her team only, to seeing the varying degrees of student support/insanity. And of course, all of the different school songs (as the U of M Rouser plays behind me). And whenever I hear Ring the Bell (for South Dakota), I can’t help but sing along (with the words I know).
As a quick tangent, is it sad that I know all of the words to the U Rouser, a school I never attended, but don’t know more than “Ring the bell for South Dakota, bah dah dah dah dah dah, ring the bell for South Dakota, bah dah dah dah dah dah? Maybe. But when SDSU makes the big dance, I’ll bother to learn the words.
As nice as seeing all kinds of different teams play, it creates challenges. If I haven’t seen a team play before, I don’t know what their tendencies are. I can’t write how this particular game this did this great, or did that poorly, compared to normal. I don’t have a normal. I only have one game. It makes for finding storylines a little more challenging. At least interesting storylines. I really can only base my story on what transpired that night. I can’t tell the game story in the context of the season story, especially because a lot of the teams I cover will only get a couple of full-game stories in the paper.
Well, I have one minutes and 15 seconds left to go before tip-off. I better run. See you next time, hopefully with a rant of some sorts (I’ve got one brewing about Minnesota politics).