A few tales from the road
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." - Benjamin Franklin, 1789
(No, Floyd. Calvin Coolidge didn't say everything.)
In the world of high school sports, there is one other certainty you could add - the long road trip.
The long road trip has become more of a certainty since the advent of class sports. It's even more of an inevitability once tournament play begins. And it's almost a given in a sport like football, especially with our smaller schools in southern Indiana, where not every school fields a football team and potential opponents are in far-flung locales.
So at some point, every player, coach, fan, radio and multi-media broadcaster, and sportswriter will be taking a trip to someplace over the hills and far away.
For the players and coaches, the long road trip represents a disruption of routine.
And for the sportswriter, life on the road is replete with its own set of challenges. Chief among those is the simple fact that you can't beat it back to Linton from Lynnville or Leopold before deadline. So the Dell laptop and the Verizon Wireless jetpack become your constant companions.
Another challenge is making arrangements for workspace. Host schools' athletic directors are generally unfailingly accommodating in this. The only problem is, time and workspace are limited when you're working from a press box. The Greene County Daily World's deadline is one thing. The host school AD's deadline is quite another.
Trying to finish up before they turned the lights out at Perry Central, I turned in a - let's call it an unfinished product that needed an application of polish.
Thanks, B.J.
More than once I've opted to file a story from a dimly-lit back booth at a McDonald's or a Denny's.
I'd rather be on the sideline than in the press box anyway. Press boxes are crowded and you can't take pictures from up there. It's easier to track play-by-play and keep stats when you're closer to the action.
There are two exceptions though - when it's raining (you can't keep stat sheets dry) and when filing from the press box is my only option anyway.
Hard as it may be to believe in our technologically advanced society, but Wi-fi access isn't available everywhere. Yes, the schools have it, but the nearest Wi-fi hotspots to Perry Central are a McDonalds and a Wendy's in Ferdinand, some thirty miles away. Unless of course, you drive further south to Tell City.
The city slickers from Indianapolis may think Linton is smack-dab in the middle of nowhere. I can tell you they haven't been to Leopold.
I'm just glad I didn't miss the turnoff to Perry Central High School and wind up in Gatchel.
Yes, there is a Gatchel and it's on the map. It's a spot in the road a few miles down Indiana 37 south of Leopold.
I don't mean to sound overly critical of Perry Central. They have top-notch athletic programs and an enthusiastic fan base.
And there were a lot of things about the Perry trip I truly enjoyed.
One thing I like about lengthy road trips - it's a good excuse to pack half a dozen CD's (yes, I still listen to CD's) and crank up the stereo in my Jeep. The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Killers, and Red Hot Chili Peppers went along for the ride down I-69 to Perry. When Can't Stop - the seventh track on the Chili Peppers "By The Way" disc - comes on, I need to keep an eye on the speedometer. That one gets me cranked up and energized.
Next time though, I'll go through Jasper and Ferdinand on the way down to Perry. It's shorter and quicker. Plus it would provide a handy excuse to eat at the Schnitzelbank in Jasper.
Eating at the Schnitz though would've spoiled my appetite for the hospitality room at Perry. They had a table set up in the auxiliary gym with about twenty boxes of Papa John's pizza stacked up in there. There must be a Papa John's in Tell City. I don't know where else they would've gotten it.
I asked Rick Curl, "Can you picture me and Big D (Dan Phillips) and Jared Albright attacking a stack of pizza boxes? Rick didn't ponder the question too long before he replied, "That's a scary thought."
In the Perry press box I found a space seated next to the radio broadcast team from Jasper's radio station. I think they were surprised to find a Schwinghammer that didn't live in or near Jasper.
It's pretty neat to hear a radio broadcast right next to you while you're working the game. I must say the guys from Jasper were impressed with what they saw from the Linton-Stockton Miners that night. Every time they went to a commercial break they would ask me, "How many yards does (Tyler) Meurer have? (Mitch) Eberhardt? (Austin) Hale?"
Last Friday I made the trip to North Vermillion. A couple of observations - Indiana 63 between Terre Haute and Cayuga is one barren, desolate stretch of road. And the field at North Vermillion was the best-conditioned playing surface I'd seen this year. As soon as I turned the corner and saw that emerald green patch of grass my first thought was, "They painted the field for this game?" They hadn't.
I left early enough to drive the extra dozen miles or so to the Beef House at the intersection of I-74 and Indiana 63. Had a 16-ounce ribeye that must have been at least an inch and a half thick. Well worth the trip.
On to the next destination...
Terry Schwinghammer is a sports writer for the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by telephone at (812) 847-4487, ext. 27. He can also be reached via email at tschwing32@yahoo.com.
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