A Long Day of Football

In my district we're required to perform unpaid duty at 6 extracurricular events per year.  The district's view is that these unpaid events (supervising at dances or at sports, for example) are part of what we get paid to do, and while they're technically correct since that's what our contract says, the local teachers union could do a lot worse than ensuring such supervision is paid.  So much time and effort goes into planning, scheduling, and supervising such unpaid supervision, most of which would go away if you paid teachers even a modicum to supervise.

At my school we get away with doing only 4 events per year.  Usually I sign up for two Friday nights of football, both JV and varsity, and that completes my non-instructional duties for the year.  We don't have stadium lights on our school's football field, so we play our home games at a school that's only about 3 miles from my house.  These football games last from about 4:30 to 10:15, and then I go home.

After we signed up for this year's unpaid non-instructional duties, a friend invited me to her Friday night wedding--on one of the Fridays I'd signed up for football duty.  Since I wanted to go to her wedding I traded duties with a teacher at my school.

He'd signed up for JV and varsity games held at our own school--on a Saturday (yesterday).  I got up, cleaned up, left home around 10, and was at school by 10:30, and the games ended around 4:15 or so. So I spent most of yesterday's daylight hours at sparsely attended football games, sitting in my lawn chair and ensuring nobody jumped the fence in order to get in without paying.  Exciting stuff.

When the game ended, the same friend I'd traded with met me at school.  He and I attended the Oregon State @ Stanford game a few weeks ago, and last night we went to the Idaho @ Sacramento State football game.

I attended both schools.  I got my masters degree online at Idaho, but I've never stepped foot on the campus.  I took 4 classes at Sac State early in my education career--not a great experience, but Sac State is my hometown school.  No matter which team won, I could be happy.  I just hoped for a well-played, close game with lots of lead changes.

We sat on the Sac State side and cheered for Sac State, which was 7-0 going into the game vs Idaho's 5-2 record.  The line was Sac State by 13.5 at kickoff, with the over/under at 62.5 points.  Throughout the first half it was easy to cheer for Sac State, and in the 3rd Quarter they were leading 24-7.

I could actually feel the momentum shift after that, as Idaho eventually pulled ahead 28-24 late in the 4th Quarter.  Sac State moved methodically down the field and scored, winning 31-28.  Idaho had missed a field goal early in the game. 

I got home shortly after 10 pm.  That was enough football for one day.