Marissa Explains It All: Flag Football Weekend From Hell Part 2

I left off at the end of Friday, leaving the bar and heading back to the hotel.

I crash and then around 1:00am my phone buzzes. It's a text from my dad. 'u up? can u talk? call me.'
I text back 'no, my roommates asleep i'll call you tomorrow.'
But then I can't fall asleep and now my brain wheels start to turn and I'm not going to get any sleep at this rate.

So I get up and creep out into the hallway, and walk to the fire escape stairs and call my dad. At 1am. I'm officially in the east coast time zone so it's not that late in California but it's still late. But I'm so nervous and still kinda reeling from it all that all I want to do is talk to my daddy. It wasn't a very long conversation, just that it was so cool to be at notre dame, and that I'm slowly meeting more and more people, a few even knew my old boss's boss back at Davis and that everyone is curious as to why or how I ended up in Illinois, etc. And I don't explicitly say that I'm nervous. But he knows. The thing about my dad is that I'm pretty sure he gets me more than I get me. I don't have to say much or really do much and he already tells me how I'm gonna think, or going to act, etc. It's weird. He's the voice in my head and to this day whenever I feel sad or want to cry I can see him and hear him saying "Don't waste your tears, there's no crying in *insert whatever sport season it happened to be, here*." And while sitting in that fire escape I became incredibly home sick. I miss him and my family so much and I wanted so badly to just be home not worrying about making the right impression, or not messing up the silly stats and making it painfully obvious that I was a rookie or going back to my job as a ga or worrying about who was supposed to work IM soccer or club baseball... All I wanted was to be sitting at home watching football with my dad. And I think he knew that and so he hurried the conversation and told me to get some sleep and to be ready for the next day. He told me that it was, if anything at all, a good learning experience and that's our motto - learn something new everyday; better yourself everyday. And then he said good night and that he wanted a ND sweatshirt from the book store.

So I felt a little better going to sleep.

Then around 4am the phone rings. It's the front desk asking that we un-deadbolt our door as our other roommate has just arrived.
I was so sleepy and tired I couldn't really comprehend what they were asking and my roommate was the same she looks over and goes…

"It's 4am…what, I, um….I'm so confused."

I know sweetheart, me too.

I unlock the door and crawl back into bed. But then not 30seconds later we hear the door open and somebody is trying to get in. This isn't weird or slightly creepy or actually terrifying if you've ever seen any episode of CSI:any city or Dexter or Law&Order or any criminal show, horror movie EVER.

The Shining…Why you will never find me staying at isolated hotel in the middle of Colorado's wilderness during a snow storm. never.

But then I hear the intruder mumble and i can tell it's the other GA from SIU. I go "B? Is that you?" and thankfully it wasn't Jack Nicholson or Christian Bale from American Psycho it was B and she goes, "Oh hey, sorry, yeah it's me." "Hey, hi, get into my bed, i'm right here by the door." "Ok, glad you're in this room, I was worried it was a total stranger." Ha. Makes 2 of us.
And then we go to sleep but it's short lived as I have to be at the field by 8.

We get to the fields and things are already happening. People are getting teams signed in, people are moving and hustling for officials committee, operations and all-tourney staff. The place is buzzing. I get my stat sheets and head out to the field with my partner, another GA from Grand Valley State University. We get our chairs, find out the teams and numbers and prepare to sit and watch and make little hash marks for every play made. Fun fun fun.
Mind you, it's 29 degrees outside. And overcast. And windy. It's VERY cold.
I'm not from SoCal and I ski so I thought I could handle the cold. Oh no. When you're just sitting there it is flipping miserable. And I was EXTREMELY miserable and let everyone know it.

I had on 3 pair of socks, cold weather leggings under my pants, a long sleeve shirt, a shirt over that, a pull over and a north face jacket on with scarf, gloves and headband for my ears and I was still cold. After about the 3rd game I couldn't handle it. I had to go and warm up. But we had had back to back games and literally no time to even take a 5min break let alone try and defrost.

Finally I just claimed I had to pee and walked back to the building where everything was held, Stepan Center is the official name. Unlayering was a ridiculous amount of work and I was not about to do that I just needed to move around and not sit in the frigid cold anymore. I noticed that WannaBeGA guy was also inside, taking a little break before he and his crew went out to the next game. He had a super nice jacket that I had used as a pillow for the car ride and you can't wear jackets while officiating so I sprinted over to him. I asked if I could use it and he laughed at me teasing me how the Cali girl just couldn't hang in the midwest. This was surprising as this is the same kid who wore long sleeve and under armor leggings for a flag football game in September…it was maybe 55 degrees. Pansy. But he gave it to me since he really didn't need it while he was working. Score! I looked like the michelin man or pilsbury dough boy I had on 6 or 7 layers but I didn't care, I was finally not so miserable.

One of the main guys running the All-Tournament staff saw me take the jacket and later asked me about it. I kinda joked that I pulled rank and made WannaBe give it to me. At the end of the day when I still had it on and WannaBe was finished with his games, he came up to me again and said "Atta girl, you pull rank, keep that jacket til we're done. remind those boys just who they're working for." with a wink. I laughed out loud but I agreed. No way was he getting it back until he begged for it or I knew I was headed back to a nice warm hotel room.

Throughout the day after I got past the notion it was flipping freezing and not about to get any warmer I did learn a lot. I learned more about the rules of flag football (its amazing how much you think you know and then a crazy play happens and everyone goes umm wait what? how many yards is that? from line of scrimmage or point of penalty? and how did that even happen??) and about how to take stats more efficiently and what to really look for. I'm pretty sure I even started enjoying myself just sitting there with the GVSU kid talking football. I'm sure I sound like a complete bore and a total boy but hey, that's my job. And it wasn't all serious no, my nerves weren't as present by mid day and I even got to know some really cool people. Sure we bonded over the cold and flag football mostly but that's more than nothing.

One professional staff in particular had me in fits of laughter no matter how cold or frozen I felt. He was about 5'5 on a good day and had the biggest southern accent I had ever heard outside of television and he was quite literally a ball of fire. For being a professional, he was a tad short on that spectrum. He cussed and made jokes and got silly and told us probably not the best stories of his crazy past. He knows my boss and told me to tell him that he was a bald jack ass. Yeah, I'm definitely going to do that..you betchya. no. But we got to talking and I'm pretty sure he was just thrilled I laughed at everything he says as he already calls me a blonde and space cadet. And i did laugh at all of his jokes. all of them. but then he goes, 'you probably need to have a life talk with me. I give great life talks.' oh really. this coming from the guy who painted his name in the middle of an intersection and then went back and repainted it when they tried to take it off…yes. great life advice i'm sure… he goes "When I first saw you, I could tell. You're at the corner of 'Where The Hell Am I Street' and 'What The F*** Am I Doing Ave'."
Talk about quick to judge.
While I did burst out laughing I kinda thought 'dang…he's kinda right. I'm totally at that corner.'

We ended our day and kinda talked over who our star players were etc, then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Dinner was served at a BBQ place that had some pretty good BBQ and I was told it was nothing compared to Tennessee's BBQ. While it is northern indiana so…I'm guessing ya Tennessee is going to be a bit better. But I was taught that you have to eat your cole slaw on top of your pulled pork not separately and that the best beer to pair bbq with is the slightly more bitter ales to off set the sweet BBQ sauce. Learn something new everyday. The more I got to talk with the folks at the tourney and just kinda fully immerse myself in this new culture of not only the midwest but Rec Sports, the more I've come to really like it. The people are nice. And funny. And I love all of the accents. Yeah it gets clique-y. But a lot of these folks have known each other for years and a new face is always coming and going. But everyone will listen to your story as long as you'll listen to theirs. Everybody has a story to tell, a path they took, or didn't take, that got them to where they're at. And no one, not a single person there hates their job. There are bad days but everyone in that field loves it. Some leave and then come back and some never ever leave and some never come back but they're all incredibly happy. So maybe I am at the corner of "Where The Hell Am I Street" and "What The F*** Am I Doing Ave". But I think it's just taking me a little bit to figure out my map. I don't have an end destination, but I'll figure it out. I'm learning. And maybe a few life talks from that fire ball guy will do the trick. Who knows, it could work. I'm up for anything.

Here's some photos of the weekend but To Be Continued for my last day and final entry of the flag football trilogy!