Well the last three nights have been spent watching volleyball games (what else is new?). Last night I finally got to see some friends from my early teams play. Two of them, Carlos and Barbara, were on my team the second season when I started playing with the Big City league. Now the memories from those days really take me back. Barbara and I had a long history after having known each other since freshman year in college (Spring 1993), and she was interested in joining a team after my first season playing. We picked up Carlos at the league open scrimmage and the rest is history as they say. They became part of the backcourt Brandeis crew. Now that is a crew I truly miss, I'm still there, it's just they have moved on. I want to try and arrange a dinner with some of that old crew, but that might be a huge task.
Tonight I went to watch a D10 co-ed match. I was talking to the referee and observing how to set up the net system and stuff. I need to learn how to do that because it is the one thing I have yet to really look at and observe. My friends' team had a full line-up but their opponents only had two people show up so they had to forfeit. So I got to play around like it was open gym. I stayed and watched another match that my friends had after that one and saw them take the match 2-1. These two teams in the same division have their spot in the playoffs so now it's just a matter of getting practice in before the playoff date. Then to cap off the evening, I got to fill my stomach with some awesome "soupy buns" down in Chinatown. A very calm night with small observations.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
"Wild Time" (KAT AND THE KINGS)
So tonight I witnessed the type of referee I do NOT want to be. I've seen referees who are a little weak in their calls and they might irritate you with a call or two but tonight that was not the case. There was 8 of us catching a D2 men's team, Sofa King, play the No. 3 team and we sat on the pads on the sidelines doing our usual cheering. My referee clinic instructor was also refereeing but he was on the other court. I spoke to him briefly and he told me about getting a call from the assignor of NY Urban about me and giving a recommendation. I guess when I had called the assignor my phone number and email were cut off in the message and he could not get in touch with me. Well, now I have the forms and are being sent in. We'll see what happens next.
Anyway, we were cheering on our team as they were playing against the team who was in one spot below them in the rankings. In order for them to stay in first place, they could not lose anymore games until the playoffs. They eventually pulled it together and won the first game, but they really needed to adjust things if they were expected to dominate in the next two games. They had problems with poorly received serves and a little bit of a lack of communication. The team started to fall apart little by little and sometimes when the team starts to make mistakes they get down on themselves and it's hard to get them back on track. The team knew they were not playing at the level they should be, but it was aggravated even further by the referee. We were sitting behind the referee who started recanting some of his calls. He would call something out or in and then the team would question the call and he would change his mind on the call. One time I could see for certain reasons but when he did it more than 5 times then I started to get pissed. And it was just favored for one team, he did it to both teams. He would call something out and then the team would come up to him and ask about the call and he would change his mind. We were in an uproar and the team, on top of their already weakened attitude, just could not come back and lost both games. This game is such a mental activity that when angered feelings are mixed in, it's not a pretty site. I had never seen such a poorly refereed game. I am well aware of the fact that referees are a figure of authority in the game and you must be fair as best to your ability in calling games, but when you start to doubt your own calls then you must really learn "to get a backbone." It was also an example of how a team and spectators will react to your calls as a referee if they think it is not called properly, but as we learned a referee's decision is FINAL. There is no room to keep changing your mind. Our team knew they played a weak game and lost because they were not playing their best, but they did not deserve the referee they got. Okay, let me stop because I know how irritated I already am about the situation but also how much I do not want to be a referee like that.
Anyway, we were cheering on our team as they were playing against the team who was in one spot below them in the rankings. In order for them to stay in first place, they could not lose anymore games until the playoffs. They eventually pulled it together and won the first game, but they really needed to adjust things if they were expected to dominate in the next two games. They had problems with poorly received serves and a little bit of a lack of communication. The team started to fall apart little by little and sometimes when the team starts to make mistakes they get down on themselves and it's hard to get them back on track. The team knew they were not playing at the level they should be, but it was aggravated even further by the referee. We were sitting behind the referee who started recanting some of his calls. He would call something out or in and then the team would question the call and he would change his mind on the call. One time I could see for certain reasons but when he did it more than 5 times then I started to get pissed. And it was just favored for one team, he did it to both teams. He would call something out and then the team would come up to him and ask about the call and he would change his mind. We were in an uproar and the team, on top of their already weakened attitude, just could not come back and lost both games. This game is such a mental activity that when angered feelings are mixed in, it's not a pretty site. I had never seen such a poorly refereed game. I am well aware of the fact that referees are a figure of authority in the game and you must be fair as best to your ability in calling games, but when you start to doubt your own calls then you must really learn "to get a backbone." It was also an example of how a team and spectators will react to your calls as a referee if they think it is not called properly, but as we learned a referee's decision is FINAL. There is no room to keep changing your mind. Our team knew they played a weak game and lost because they were not playing their best, but they did not deserve the referee they got. Okay, let me stop because I know how irritated I already am about the situation but also how much I do not want to be a referee like that.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
"You've Gotta Get A Gimmick" (GYPSY)
So in the latest issue of VOLLEYBALL magazine, they have a profile of Long Beach. It talks about the beach volleyball scene out there on Long Island and this is the one location where we go almost every Sunday during the summer. So far we've been out there a couple of times this year but we haven't really played much volleyball. This past weekend that changed. I had about 20 friends out there playing in the beautiful weather and I was sad to miss it.
I was not able to make it out to Long Beach this past weekend because we had an annual event to work on--Broadway Bares 17. It's our burlesque show
where we have Broadway's dancers strutting their stuff all for the cause. It was my 8th year and pretty much for most of the staff it's all about going on auto-pilot with what we need to do. For the producers, choreographers, and creative team, they put so much work into this show and it certainly shows. Then to see over 800 people volunteer their time to pull this all together makes this such a huge success. After many hours at Roseland, we finished the two-show night with a total amount raised of $743,000. Another new record.
Even though I did not leave Roseland until 3:30am this morning after being there for 19 hours, we still needed to be back in the office at 10am to pull apart and unfold sweaty dollar bills that was collected when the dancers did "rotation" on the stage. It took us over six hours to unfold and count over $32,000 that was made on the "rotation." Definitely wore gloves to do this sort of thing.
I had a re-scheduled Mets game ticket for tonight and was thinking I was crazy for going to it after the crazy schedule we had over the weekend. But I wanted to go because I had not ever been to a Mets game, the last time we tried we got a lot of rain. I was glad that I did because it was just a nice, relaxing evening with a cool breeze and funny friends. It was a good way to wind down the day. And the Mets won the game.
I was not able to make it out to Long Beach this past weekend because we had an annual event to work on--Broadway Bares 17. It's our burlesque show
where we have Broadway's dancers strutting their stuff all for the cause. It was my 8th year and pretty much for most of the staff it's all about going on auto-pilot with what we need to do. For the producers, choreographers, and creative team, they put so much work into this show and it certainly shows. Then to see over 800 people volunteer their time to pull this all together makes this such a huge success. After many hours at Roseland, we finished the two-show night with a total amount raised of $743,000. Another new record.Even though I did not leave Roseland until 3:30am this morning after being there for 19 hours, we still needed to be back in the office at 10am to pull apart and unfold sweaty dollar bills that was collected when the dancers did "rotation" on the stage. It took us over six hours to unfold and count over $32,000 that was made on the "rotation." Definitely wore gloves to do this sort of thing.
I had a re-scheduled Mets game ticket for tonight and was thinking I was crazy for going to it after the crazy schedule we had over the weekend. But I wanted to go because I had not ever been to a Mets game, the last time we tried we got a lot of rain. I was glad that I did because it was just a nice, relaxing evening with a cool breeze and funny friends. It was a good way to wind down the day. And the Mets won the game.
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