Rugby Tournament from Hell

So it's Sunday, and before we start up again and head to our offices and/or class rooms or whatever the normal work week calls for I have to tell the story about my lovely week and weekend.

It all started a couple weeks ago. Looking at our event calendar, Rugby tournament coming up, we start to kinda plan, get the ball rolling…more like nudged, not exactly moving and shaking things but it's on our minds. Fast forward to this past week..BOOM here it comes!

Rugby tournament consists of 20 teams, men and women from around Illinois and it's a huge ordeal. It's tradition, it's well known, and it's going to be ran by yours truly. Cool.

Wait, hold on there's a catch (always is.)…

My other GA is out of town, Bridgette has a friend's wedding to attend. Oh and the Boss Man is out too.

And they're leaving mid-week. Cool.

So me, myself and I were the only people of semi-professional status (emphasis on the semi) running not only a Rugby tournament but the whole office. All Sport Clubs, all IM sports, all staff, office workers, sups, refs, yep all on me.
Cool.

No, not cool! Commence major freak out! I say "Fake it til you make it" all the time but this is it, this is the real deal. Ready or not, here ya go.

Haha real funny guys…April Fools. Ya almost got me. Wait. No? Tell me it's a joke! Tell me!

Nope. No joke. Not like on April Fool's Day when my staff tried to convince me one of them broke their leg and thus couldn't work so I prepared to go out there to cover for him since everyone was busy or already working only to have him show up without a cast or crutches and instead a big ol grin saying 'Gotchya'. Good one fellas, real funny. (it was a good one and pretty funny even if they are all goons.)

Since I feel like if I talk about each day I'll end up writing 10 pages I'll list out what my days as the 'BossLady' consisted of.

67 emails
4 meetings for Rugby
3 for other events in April
2 for Water Polo Club
(9 total)
2 days of rainouts (me calling it for safety and field conditions)
4 trips to the fields to check on conditions for the weekend and prep for the tournament
83 phone calls
(41 of them from JUST Saturday)
1 really bad sinus cold/sore throat
Way too many texts to count
1 water polo tournament
1 Rugby tournament
7 ambulance calls (rugby is a brutal sport and every time a kid says "My HEAD hurts/injured/etc" we have to call.)
and 1 very, very, very, long (7am to 7pm) and muddy Saturday

*whew*

But I did it! And I'm going to give myself a big ol' pat on the back because it was really good. My staff totally stepped up and worked hard during the tourney and were a big help and we even finished right on time (unheard of for most tourneys).

I got this, bro.

Even though I was nervous because of all the rain we had had that I might would have to cancel part of the tournament because the fields would just get absolutely ruined by large amounts of people pretty much wrestling in the mud. But it worked out that we didn't have to. And there was an SIU baseball game going on at the same time so we had to make sure we were out of athletics way but that was one of my meetings earlier in the week so that was accounted for. And as for the ambulance, that's just part of sports. People collide, get kicked in the face or shin and that's our job. Try to fix 'em and if we can't do it with a band aid or some gauze we send them to the ambulance (on sight to make it easy and way less stressful about travel time). Only a few gnar-gnar injuries (dislocated shoulder, a few sprains and one pretty badly injured knee) and dozens of ice bags handed out for the bumps and bruises.

Injuries are bound to happen when it's normal to do this in a sport.

and this.

But most of the time…

it's just a bunch of crude ruggers. Eww.

But we planned for the worst and it worked out that we didn't need to use all that we thought we would. Amazing how you prep for an apocalypse and you only get little bloopers. One of which was under staffed, so I was Interim Boss/GA/Sup for a lot of the day, another was the Baseball game kind of throwing off our groove but not too badly. And then the ambulance kinda got stuck in the mud. Imagine that, it rains 4-6inches just 2 days before but taking the ambulance out on the field made total sense…it wasn't for very long though and we all got a good chuckle out of it and moved on. Luckily no one was inside it waiting to get taken to the hospital. That would have been awkward.

I was really glad it went well though and throughout the week and on Friday some of the other pro-staff had asked if all was set, and good to go and that they may head out there to check it out. Gulp. Ok yeah sure I got it, *nervous shaking* but luckily none did show but had they, they would have seen a well oiled machine, everyone doing their parts. I always kinda jokingly/seriously tell my staff that their number one priority is to make me look good. And they did. High Five Team!

Stop. Really. It was nothing. I don't do it for the applause but oh ok, I'll take a bow.

So yeah, I can be the 'BossLady' and even though not everything went as planned, I proved to everyone including myself (which was the big one I needed to prove to) that I can do it. Not alone completely but moving and shaking things is definitely something I can add to my resume. And fun fact, a year ago at the same rugby tournament, my mom and I had traveled to visit Carbondale and we had watched a few matches. Fast forward 12 months and I was running it. Heck ya. But this chic is super tired even though today was a lot of sleeping in, school work and not talking because my cold is still around and I sound like a man or a frog or both. And I present tomorrow in front of my class. This should go well.

To Be Continued!