Wednesday Wisdom: You Can Have Anything You Want
You just can't have everything you want. So decide what you really want, and go get it.
Regardless of the sport(s) you broadcast, there are going to be handful of weeks every year that are going to really test your ability to focus, stay on task, persevere and remain committed to your craft in spite of the chaos. For me, in the college football and basketball space, that usually spans most of the month of November and early December when the two sports overlap.
While America was enjoying turkey, family and football, my schedule looked like this:
Thanksgiving Thursday (Palm Springs, California): head to the arena around 12:30 p.m. for a basketball game against Colorado State at 3:30 p.m. PT. Tear down set up after postgame show around 6:30 p.m. Turkey and prep for Santa Clara, which won its first round game to meet us in the finals.
Friday (Palm Springs, California): get to arena around 11 a.m. for a 1 p.m. tipoff against Santa Clara. Bring luggage with me. Stress out as the consolation game before ours goes to overtime, putting my flight to Eugene in question. Call a win. Wrap up postgame as fast as possible, tear down, gun it to the airport, check radio equipment and hustle to the gate to make a 5:31 p.m. flight to Seattle. Layover in Seattle for two and a half hours. Connect to Eugene. Land after midnight, wait for radio equipment at baggage claim, and get to hotel around 1 a.m. Hotel room was 53 degrees when I arrived. (I’m all for conserving energy, but c’mon, man.)
Saturday (Eugene, Oregon): breakfast, head to Autzen Stadium around 11 a.m., work with our fill-in engineer to get our set up squared away and call our football game at Oregon with a 2:30 p.m. sign-on for a 4:30 kickoff. After postgame, hustle to the bus and fly the charter home to Seattle. Pull into my driveway after midnight.
Sunday (Seattle): take care of some things around the house and pick up my wife and son at the airport. Their flight was scheduled to land at 11:45 p.m., but an insane amount of traffic at the SeaTac airport made me 45 minutes late to pick them up. We got home after 1 a.m.
Monday (Seattle): full work day starting at 9 a.m., culminating with hosting our final football coaches show of the year from 6-7 p.m., and then heading straight to the airport to catch a 9:15 p.m. flight to LAX. Landed in Los Angeles around midnight and got to the team hotel around 1 a.m.
Tuesday (Los Angeles): called Washington at UCLA basketball at 7 p.m. Fortunately, I had booked my own travel to stay overnight in L.A. on Tuesday night with a Wednesday flight home. I was supposed to be on the team charter, which wasn’t able to land in Seattle due to heavy fog, got redirected to Everett, couldn’t land there either, and headed south to Portland, where a bus picked up the team at 3:30 a.m. and got the team back to campus around 6:30 a.m.
Also, I had a sinus infection and an inner ear infection the whole time.
Happy Holidays.
Coming off a run of about three weeks like that, where my wife and kid were also sick, it’s easy for “the dream” to feel overwhelming. It was a crazy, chaotic time, and it got me thinking about a life lesson that my dad taught me when I was really young – one that has stuck with me and helped clarify things in these tough seasons.
I think this lesson is applicable in all situations regardless of what you're aiming at, regardless of what your goals are and which field you're trying to succeed in, whether it's family relationships, growing as a person spiritually, or advancing in your career.