So tonight is the night...

It all begins for me tonight. This is what businessmen would refer to as their "busy season". Tonight the soccer season begins and Saturday the football season begins. That means my life revolves around football, soccer and volleyball from now until basketball season and then basketball season goes until nearly April when baseball picks up.

I guess I'm pretty much still in school. When school starts, I actually have to start working a lot more. I didn't get a chance to shoot but maybe 3 total games last year of football and soccer with my beloved Nikon D70. But this year I'll probably shoot around 1,500 to 2,000 photos and still find time to broadcast 5 soccer and 5 or 6 football games on the radio this season.

Although the broadcasting part is just fun. The soccer is a little tiring since it never stops, but the football will be a blast when my buddy and I get going. Lord knows what will happen.

Probably the highlight of my illustrious broadcasting career was when I was broadcasting a football game that was a road game for our team. We were up in the plush press box chowing down on Papa John's pizza and we had just finished the first half and were going into our half time extravaganza.

It happened to be homecoming at the particular high school where my partner and I were broadcasting and the homecoming candidates were all riding in convertibles out on the track.

So throughout the broadcast during breaks we had chatted about how goofy that particular school's mascot looked. And it turned out that the mascot, which was a panther, was riding with the reigning homecoming queen in a T-Bird convertible.

This was my first broadcast ever and I was kind of freaking out in the beginning, but by this time I had settled in and realized that no one was probably listening anyway. And even though color commentators are typically supposed to know something about football, it's not really required. I just make it up as I go.

So the cars are coming around the track and my partner, while on the air and obviously drunk on Papa John's pizza, says, "Looks like the panther got himself a homecomin' hoochie."

It was at this point that I thought, "Dear God, everyone is listening!" But that was followed by fought laughter and a silent wish for a dump off to commercials that didn't come true. I had flashes of Charlie Steiner completely breaking down on Sportscenter and not being able to stop.

I was trying to find some words to say, but they weren't there. He's the play-by-play man so that means I'm supposed to expound on his observations and everything I could come up with in my head definitely wasn't going to help the situation.

What I finally came up with was, "I don't think... I would call her... that."

See that was back when we wanted to try and make the broadcast seem really professional like we were going to get picked up by ESPN to do their broadcasts. Now we just broadcast like we are a couple of idiots watching a game.

It works because it isn't too far from the truth.