All in all I had a pretty decent weekend. I didn't get nearly as much trash pick-up done as I would have liked, but I think I had a pretty good excuse. I received a last-minute plea to help train some new Little League umpires for the upcoming season. At first I was pretty bummed that I wouldn't have a photo of a big stack of trash bags to show off today, but the training session went really well, despite the fact that I ad libbed the entire thing. Trash pick-up along Beal Slough will just have to continue indefinitely until I get it all collected.
On Saturday I had the pleasure of centering the Lincoln Lutheran vs. Elkhorn boys soccer match, featuring the top two teams in Class B. As I expected it was a great match. Elkhorn ended up winning 2-0 with goals in the 75th and 76th minutes. Look for an exciting rematch at the State Tournament.
An assessor was present in the stands so my assistants and I received some great feedback following the match. The assessor seemed pleased with my performance overall. He only really dinged me for two things, both of which I agreed with, and both of which are easily fixable. He must have thought, after seeing me a couple times this season, that I'm doing fine, because Saturday night I received my assignments for districts. I'm not only assigned to the state's strongest district (4 teams in the top 10 in wildcard points), but I'm assigned to two centers, including the district championship match. That bodes well for some good assignments at the State Tournament, including my goal for the season, earning a center in one of the four State Championship matches.
On Sunday I umped a couple baseball games, both of which went extremely smoothly, save for a 30 minute lightning delay. My partner was a Wesleyan student who was umpiring in Lincoln for the first time. He did a great job.
I finished off the weekend with a trip to Crawdaddy's with The Missus and Husker Pilot, who just returned from AMS (Academy of Military Science). Welcome back, HP!
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
Speaking of el futbol, I’ve been getting up really early on Saturdays lately and I’ve really started to enjoy watching the Premiership matches on Foxsports World. I’m becoming a Tottenham Hotspur fan.
Oh, and did you catch the news that FIFA has the U.S. ranked #4 right now. Most commentators I’ve read seem to think it’s a cynical attempt at increasing World Cup viewership this summer rather than anything based on objective criteria.
They could rate the U.S. #1 and it wouldn’t make much difference. Until professional soccer gets more exposure in the U.S., the World Cup will be watched mainly by the few in this country who care about the game. The exposure is getting better, but more often than not the networks like to put 3rd-string hacks in the booth, leaving viewers to come out of the experience knowing less about the game than when they went in. U.S. soccer needs its Harry Carrey or Keith Jackson.
I’d say that soccer is definitely on the upswing here. I’ve noticed that Euro league news has started showing up on ESPN.com’s front page on a regular basis in the past year or so; in addition, the World Cup group draw as an all-day event on their Web site, and it was quite well-reported overall in American media. (I don’t even remember hearing anything about the 2002 draw when it happened.)
Anyway, I’d say this rise in public attention is due to a) the ever-rising number of immigrants from soccer-loving countries and b) the ever-rising number of Americans who have visited/lived in soccer-loving countries.
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.