On The Road With Jim

I really like my job-or should I say jobs. One of them is calling the Play-By-Play for the Air Force Academy Football and Basketball teams. I am very lucky to thave this position and always remind myself of that. I travel with the teams and get to see much of the country-or should I say airports and hotel rooms. People come up to me and say, "Wow-you travel all the time. You get to see some great cities and sightsee." No-not quite. Take Football-We leave on a charter Friday morning. We fly in to the city of the team we are playing early Friday afternooon. I grab all our radio equipment and head out to the stadium so we can get set up and make sure everything is working. That can take up to 2 hours. Then I go to the hotel and work on my notes. Most guys who want to do play by play think you just show up and talk. No. I spend up to 15 hours getting ready for a football game. I work into the night and early morning-grab 3 hours sleep-get up and go do the game. Then we fly home right afterwards. Basketball is not much better. I got into Albuquerque for our game against New Mexico Friday afternoon at 5. Went right to the hotel where I spent the rest of the night because I didn't feel well. Up early Saturday and spent the day working on my basketball notes. Got to the arena at 5:55 for a 7:30pm game. After the game prowled around late Saturday night in Albuquerque (not recommended for the faint of heart) looking for a Mcdonalds for dinner. Got to sleep at 1am. Up at 5:30am to catch an 8:15am flight and land in Denver Sunday morning at 9;15. Really glamorous huh? Plus I am dragging a suitcase, 2 bags of radio equipment (always fun passing through security with that) and my bag full of notes. I love what I do, but this job requires long hours-short sleep-a love of fast food and the desire to do your homework. And yes its easy to forget what city you are in.