On Thursday night, I left work early to volunteer at the women’s soccer game. It’s required for KIN410 to volunteer at four sporting events throughout the semester, and as most of them are during the weekend (when I’m either at work or volunteering for the field experience program), I had no choice but to forgo a sliver of my next paycheck in the name of a grade. And writing credit, which I don’t need. But I digress.
Tom, the guy in charge, originally told me (the day of the event, actually – love all this advance notice!) that he wanted me there at five. Five? For a game that started at 7? I told him I had work until six, and would get there at around 5:30. When he responded with “that’s fine, see you then!” I knew… I wouldn’t be doing very much.
And guess what? I was right!
Because it was required for a class, there were several other people there. Sam, the girl I’m working with on a project for that class, was there, and it was nice actually having a friend while I wasn’t doing anything. Livens things up a bit, ya know?
We didn’t have anything to do until the team started warming up, when we got to stand behind the goal and chase any missed shots so the players didn’t have to. It was actually kind of fun. I haven’t played soccer in YEARS, and it brought back lots of memories. It was nice using my deteriorating soccer skills again!
The athletic department loves getting kids to work for them during events (remember my track and field debacle from the spring?), and soccer was no different. During the game, we had kids that were the ball boys and girls, and they told us college kids to “help them out.” Aka do nothing, and occasionally nudge them to pay attention to the game. But Sam and I basically just stood around, watched the game, and chatted. Not a bad deal, I guess. It was nice to have SOMETHING to do as a volunteer.
And then we went to the food truck round-up. And then I had a super awkward experience in my bathroom, which you can read about here because I really don’t feel like reliving it. Hooray.
Today, I had my second day of volunteering with the Florida Panthers. It was the first day of practice with the full team, which I was excited for, but it also meant dragging my tired butt out of bed before sunrise again. How do you tell you didn’t get enough sleep? When you wake up to your alarm and have no idea what it means. Yeah, that was me this morning.
I only had time for about five mouthfuls of yogurt before my ride got there, which was rather unfortunate, as the only things I ate between that and 3:00 were a baggie of nuts and a granola bar. Ah, the glamorous life of a journalist.
We got there at around 7:45 for a shift that started at 8. I was assigned to web content this time (!!!!!!!), so I was super pumped to write a story. But two hours later, I was still sitting there aimlessly, watching a group of girls have an ice skating lesson on the rink in front of us. Le sigh.
My assignment was to write a story about the first practice under the new head coach, Kevin Dineen. I started looking up articles and such for background info, but there really wasn’t anything for me to do until I could talk to the guy.
The practice was broken up into halves, one from 10:30 to 11:15-ish, and then from noon to almost 1:00. During the break in between, we had locker room access to get quotes from the players (of course, Dineen wouldn’t be talking to anyone until AFTER the second practice). We just kind of sat around until then, and I didn’t even really need to talk to players, but I went in with some other volunteers and the rest of the media anyway. Why not, right? It ended up being pretty useless for my story, but it was still cool! I was in my first scrum, and recorded an interview with Scott Upshall!
Then I sat around some more. I had most of the background info on the coach written by then, so I had nothing to do. I like framing a story around the quotes I get, so I was getting really antsy.
After the second practice, the GM and coaches were coming out separately to do a press conference/interview session. A girl needed a recorder to use so she could transcribe the interview with the GM, so I gave her the one that had been in my possession all day. So she used it, and was still using it when I needed to go record Dineen’s interview. I had the stupid thing all day, except for when I needed it. Such is life.
I did get another one, though, and was in another scrum with Dineen. Again, super cool, even though it was with lots of other journalists so I didn’t have to ask any questions myself. But I felt like such a member of the media! /nerd.
So, by now it was around 1:15. I’d been sitting around doing more or less nothing since 8 am. I wrote my story, had it read over by Dr. Scott, emailed it to her, and was out of there by 2. I woke up at 6 am for a grand total of about an hour of work out of six hours spent at an iceplex.
BUT I now have a really awesome clip to send with my resume!
Awwww yeahhh. :)
And at least the media room was moderately warm. The soccer game was at night, so it wasn’t grossly hot, either. It looks like I finally ended my streak of volunteering in grossly uncomfortable temperatures! (Except for the first hour or so I was at soccer, and the few minutes I was standing by the ice waiting to get into the locker room…)
Oh, and hockey players are super cute. Just had to get that out there.
…Was I going to say something else? I don’t know. Again, my brain isn’t really functioning all that well. Kiiiiinda drowsy. One day I’ll write a well thought out blog here again, but right now I’m thinking about how much work I still have to do (that I’ve been neglecting for far too long) and how badly I just want to sleep.
I cannot wait to sleep late next Saturday. CANNOT. WAIT.
