I'm using Youtube TV to watch the 6-man Division 1 State championship in my office. Ain't no more work getting done today.

I see that this hasn't changed.

Little Elm got moved into the same district with Denton Guyer and Allen. They already sucked in football. This won't help with the childrens confidence.

on a side note

Wow, that is brutal.

Today, schools in Texas got their asses hung up on for the year, and that means the same for high school sports. When sports were "temporarily" halted back in March, the boys State basketball tournament was underway, and baseball, softball, and track had just started their seasons.

Hoob the photographer had covered two baseball games, two softball games and two track meets and I was loving it.

I've been helping out a different small-town newspaper this year and even though they did funny things when cropping my pictures, I was happy to lend a hand. It's my favorite time of year, and it never really got going.

The Sherman paper has posted their All-Texomaland Fishing team for 2020. They have a First Team and a Second Team. They even have their Coach of the Year finalists.

These are desperate times.

Yesterday it was reported that the UIL is allowing live video broadcast of Friday night regular season football games. The rule until now was that if it was regular season football on a Friday night, it could not be video broadcast live. Radio or audio streaming were allowed.

My tiny school commonly had events streamed live, but it was volleyball and basketball.

I can't believe I made it through an entire day without being contacted about getting Internet to the press box.

That was a real rule? What a dumb rule

I didn't realize they couldn't show regular season games live but I guess blackout rules apply at all levels.

I didn't know it only applied to Friday nights. Thursday and Saturdays were fair game and I didn't know that.

Of course this didn't stop Mom from showing a game on FB Live.

I have been known to broadcast a winning haka or two. I hope I don't get thrown in Facebook jail over it.

i've reported you.....



just kidding. i don't know how to upload videos on facebook

The UIL rule for the playoffs is, you don't get to stream playoff games like you did the regular season. They are pretty clear about it.

A friend of mine was ordered by his admins to drive to a town and get them set up to stream their first round playoff game. I convinced him that this was against the rules and sent him the link. He thanked me and got out of that chore.

That same night, I noticed that a 3A playoff game was streamed. The next night I watched a different 3A school's game online. This stream was fairly well done. They even had sponsored goofy events like the Cowboy broadcasts do. "And he's into the OK Feed Mill red zone..."

These games were of DFW teams that were playing west Texas schools and the opponents were doing the streams.

But hey, what do I know.

After years of hosting baseball, it's come to this:

Graham (9-1) vs Aubrey (11-1), 6 p.m. Saturday at Arlington’s Globe Life Park

You realize they’ve been having games there pretty much every week since the season started, right?

High school games? Nope, I did not.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.star-t ... 23095.html

19 games total according to this article. Arlington signed a lease there and I’m assuming the others played there for the extra seating for social distancing.

I would like to photograph a game there one day.

There is at least one playoff game today (Thanksgiving day). Springtown, a 4A school is playing Dumas at Big Spring. For some reason my mind immediately went to concession stand workers who will be serving nachos today.

Last week I covered a game at Fort Worth Castleberry that had zero sideline space. One of the teams passed nearly every play and there were plenty of opportunities for me to get hit. Again. Bubble screens to my side make for great photos, but they are dangerous for photogs.

They had a Trinity/LD Bell game there a few weeks ago. Trinity slaughtered LD Bell because LD Bell sucks. It was wonderful.

The two bands went down to the field at halftime and performed a couple of songs together: "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" and "The 'Hey!' Song". My kiddo got a kick out of it.

It was a neat experience, but I'd hate to have every game there. The stands on the home side aren't very fan friendly.

I see that they are hosting a 3A playoff game on Thursday and a 4A game on Friday.

Before the game I covered on Friday, I was talking with a photog from Maxpreps and he was telling me about some of the voodoo events that had happened earlier in the day. Some were downright shocking. Unfortunately, that crap carried over to the team that I cover and I'm done for the season. It was fun while it lasted.

A lot has been made of the girl from Muenster kicking the game-winning field goal and it is a big deal, but nothing was said about what in the world they were even doing in that position. That was a big-time upset. Oh, and dumbass Dale Hansen said she was a soccer player. She is a great basketball player. They don't have soccer up there, fatso.

Uh Gam, you got any interesting football news for us?

Holy fookin shite that game against Allen was crazy. I figure we'd get blown out because of our limited offense scheme but that Ollie Gordon is a baller! We've got a couple of guys on the Oline pushing 300 lbs so by the 4th quarter Allen's Dline was worn out and Ollie was able to collect several big runs. Trinity's defense made some good stops and forced some turnovers, but Allen was still able to put up a lot of points. They're QB "Booty" is pretty good at football.

Allen's "Thousand Man Band" was down several hundred. It looked like a normal big high school marching band.

Back at Globe Life Park on Saturday morning to play Southlake Carrol in the quarter finals. We'll probably get our asses handed to us.

Every once in a while I encounter an official that doesn't like photographers. These people need to promptly go fuck themselves.

Softball started up today, asked the local news guy if he wanted photos from an away game and he said yes. I was happy to help so off I went.

After the top of the first, the home plate ump came over and told me I wasn't allowed to be on the field. All media had to be outside the fence, he said. This place had a new 7 foot chainlink that was situated so I couldn't shoot through it. So after 2/3 of an inning, I went home, extremely pissed off because I had covered games on this field for about 15 years, and suddenly I couldn't.

I don't understand it. I don't bother anyone, talk to anyone, get in the way, or anything. But I get fuckers like this. Hope he took a wild pitch to the crotch.

Any way you can talk to whoever's running the show and get some kind of clearance, clarence?

I have a couple of friends in the business and I'll see what they say. I texted a friend who is a softball umpire and his answer was, LOL. Thanks, buddy. I am an acquaintance of the opposing coach and I know he didn't have anything to do with it. He's a good dude.

My school's coach is a rookie out of college and this was her first game. I wonder if she knew this happened.

I guess I'll have to use a ladder. For the past five years or so I've used one to shoot pictures of our batters from right-center field, then walk over and stand at the third base dugout when my school is on defense. I guess I'll just use it all the time.

Covered a high school game as usual on Friday and one of the officials was a woman. She was at least 50 years old.

Noticed during the game that the referee was coaching her on the "mechanics" of being in the right place for stuff. I guessed that there was inexperience going on here but wasn't put off by it at all. I know there is a shortage of officials and they have to learn sometime.

Learned later on that she was the referee's wife. She was working the sidelines, which meant that she was subjected to the shit that coaches spew their way.

Who would allow their wife to be subjected to that.

While covering a playoff game on Friday, a friend showed me a picture of the Andrews HS band bus that got hit by a one-way driver in Big Spring. They were on the way to a playoff game which ended up being postponed. The band director at Andrews High School died in it.

The band director's brother coaches basketball in the Gainesville area and is a really good guy. We all hate this, of course.

The UIL is allowing Andrews to play their game against Springtown on Monday, which is extremely unusual. And understandable. Springtown is ranked 20th and Andrews, 50th.

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A couple of weeks ago I was coming home from covering a game and I noticed I was in a long caravan of late-night drivers. Judging from where they exited, I figured they were going home from various playoff games. I got to thinking about how many people are out on the roads on Friday nights and how bad things can happen.

Quite a few bands volunteered to stand in for the Andrews band. The game was played in Sweetwater, so the Sweetwater band got to do it.

Edited to add: Well, I just saw a video of the Big Spring band alongside the Sweetwater band.

As expected, Springtown won.

Trinity took care of business until the 3rd round this past Saturday. We played Allen at their stadium for some reason. Still not sure how that happened. I don't remember Trinity having a home game or playing in an opponents stadium after the 1st round. We usually end up at Chocktaw or AT&T if we play a metroplex team, and will play in a neutral field with an out of town team.

It doesn't matter where we would have played Allen, cuz they whooped us up pretty bad. Embarrassingly bad. Plus it was cold and rainy. Fuck high school football.

We were sitting around and discussing the playoffs and noticed it was to be at Allen. We wondered what the story was. I've seen odd stuff happen due to losing a coin flip.

Follow the money!

As is my custom, I am at my computer looking at scores from Friday night football action. From 6-man is this score:

Irion County, 105, Rotan, 91.

Imagine scoring 91 points in any high school sport and losing.

Trinity has a new coach and no Ollie Gordon. We are 0-5 and look turrrrrrible.

What position do you play?

left nacho

My school is also 0-5. The good news is, we haven't had to resort to a running clock during a game. Yet.

Let's see if I can explain this new baseball rule for the playoffs.

In the old days, schools would argue about a one game or three game series for the playoffs. Can't agree? Flip a coin.

If a team only has one good pitcher, it matters big time.

The UIL is tinkering with a rule for 5A and 6A baseball this year that says, no more coin flips. If one team wants a 3 game series, that's what you get. It's a one year trial for this year.

The State semis and championship will still be one game as usual.

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I really like this rule. I've seen all sorts of stuff happen over the years to teams who won the coin toss for a three game series, and to those who lost it.

Last Friday night was turd floater central for a lot of area football games. Hoob ISD played on natural grass and even though the game was an hour away, I loaded up the camera and went in hopes that I would get mud pictures.

I got photo magic and had an absolute blast. I've covered two other rain games in my life but they weren't anything like this. Dayum it was muddy.

It's supposed to rain hard this Friday but Hoob HS has a bye this time.

In my area, damn near every school has moved their game from Friday to Thursday because of the weather forecast.

bunch of fucking pussies

We did, too. Also this is Red Ribbon Week so each day is a theme day for the kids. So today is the Senior Pep Rally and the Seniors are supposed to wear all white while the other classes are supposed to wear black. But the announcement picture that went out simply showed a white tshirt with "Seniors" on it, then a black tshirt with "9-11" on it. I was so confused why today's theme is 9-11 day.

Trinity is playing Bell tonight. It's a Thursday game every year because apparently kids can't control themselves if they play their rivals on Friday nights.

Bell is 6-3 this year and Trinity is 3-6, but they're both 3-3 in district play. Whoever wins tonight apparently gets the final spot in the playoffs for our division. Go sports!