Monthly Archives: September 2018

Wasps in the Press Box

This is my 30th year of broadcasting football games on the radio. One of my favorite memories happened during that first year.

My broadcast partner and myself showed up at the Ulysses press box, at the time our schools biggest rival, about an hour and a half before game time to set up our equipment. As we entered the press box, my partner asked the guys in the press box where the visiting radio station would need to set up. They said, “You guys get the other end of this press box, down there with the wasps!” They both then laughed.

So as we walked down to the other end of the press box, sure enough, about a dozen wasps were flying around the area we needed to be in. My broadcast partner says to me, “I don’t do wasps; you need to take care of this problem.” He sits down the equipment he is carrying and goes to the other end of the press box.

So I grab an area wide phone book that was lying on a table and started killing wasps. Killed one on the table, killed one on the wall, then one on a chair, then I spotted one on the window we would be looking out to broadcast. I thought to myself, okay now be careful, and lightly hit the window. Well, I hit that wasp on the window and that window shattered and sent glass flying into the stadium seats.

There was only one person sitting in the entire stadium, since it was so early, and it was a woman, who was sitting directly under the window I just broke. She screamed bloody murder at the top of her lung capacity. So I thought she had probably been cut and was injured. I stuck my head through the broken window to look at her.

The coaching staffs of both teams were standing on the field looking towards me, with my head out the window and at the woman. The athletic director of the school ran over to this woman to check on her well being and thankfully she was uninjured, but covered with glass. The athletic director then came into the press box and was angry.

But the best part was all the wasps that were left in the press box, now had an escape route and flew out the window!

The rest of that season, every time our Scott City coaching staff would see me, they would ask, “Broke any windows lately?”

Beautiful

Last Friday night at the football game, I was overwhelmed with the actual beauty of everything surrounding the game. The football field itself was green and beautiful with the painted white stripes and numbers. The colors of the two opposing team’s uniforms and helmets were like a picture painted on that field of green.

The stadium seating on both sides of the field were full of fans in all their school colors. The seating areas were full and many fans were standing on both sides of the field up and down the sidelines. You could hear the band playing their music. You could smell the popcorn and the hamburgers being cooked. There was a slight breeze and the flags around the stadium were flipping lightly in the wind.

Clouds covered about ninety percent of the sky as the sun was setting which added an orange hue to the clouds adding to the colorful and beautiful evening.

Even if you didn’t know a thing about high school football you could have just enjoyed the atmosphere, the beauty and the excitement of the situation.

In our religious life, I think we sometimes focus too much on the rules and laws of that religious life. What we need to focus more on is the beauty of our religious life. Many of us go to churches that are some of the biggest and most beautiful buildings in our town that have beautiful stained glass windows that tell the story of our Christian faith. We have music that is hopefully inspiring in both word and sound.

When the pastor or priest bless the bread and wine or juice have you ever just watched that part of the service and thought back to when Jesus actually started that tradition over 2,000 years ago? It is beautiful to watch it today.

At some point to really understand what is going on in a football game we need to know the rules of the game. Our religious lives are the same, but to start with focus on the beauty of our worship services and on the beauty of the life lived by Jesus in the four gospels.