On Deadline....

Sometimes you have to be careful of what you wish for from your employer. When I was hired back in August of 2004, the executive editor and the sports editor of the Asbury Park Press asked me what my passion was. I told them covering college basketball or the NBA. They both told me although I was hired as a high school sports writer that I would get a chance to cover some college basketball. I figured that was a fair deal.

Well, opportunity knocked on Tuesday night when I was told by my sports editor that I was covering Monmouth University basketball on Wednesday night. Initially, I was shocked when he told me this and then I had to ask was it the men's team or the women's team. He said women. Although, my spirit on the inside was saying @#$%&, I smiled on the outside and told him thank you. I now had 24 hours to prepare for my first college basketball game for the Asbury Park Press.

I've been so busy with wrapping up the fall high school season and getting winter previews out that I had not read a single word about either the men's or the women's basketball teams at Monmouth this season. Our Monmouth University beat writer Tony Graham wrote a preview for Wednesday's paper (thanks Tony G) and Monmouth's opponent was the nationally-ranked (No. 9 in the latest AP poll) University of Maryland women's basketball team. Can someone say slaughter?

Honestly, the game wasn't so bad. Despite the fact that I didn't have a computer, I almost ran out of gas on my way back to the office, my car cut off on me TWICE and I bailed out the Associated Press by dictating several paragraphs to them so they could send it out nationally while I sat in my cold ass car, I didn't miss deadline. Here's the watered-down version that I gave the AP and here is my 15 inch story that I wrote with about 25 minutes from scratch (that includes 10 minutes of transcribing from a tape recorder) for the Asbury Park Press

As a matter of fact, I made deadline with 10 minutes to spare. Did I also mention that I broke rule No. 1 when covering a game? Never...Never...Never...drink any fluids after halftime of a game. Why? At some point that fluid will want to exit your body (like right after the buzzer sounded to end the game).

Unfortunately, my bladder is giving me the silent treatment this morning because last night I held it hostage till I finished my story. As soon as I hit the command "B" key to file my story to the desk, I leaped out of my chair and bolted to the men's room. Luckily, no one was in my path on my sprint to the lavatory because they would have become road kill on the spot.