Moonlighting

Since I graduated from college I've earned additional money as an official scorekeeper for athletic events. Most of the games are at the college level, although I've landed a few paying gigs for high school tournament games. (While I've done unpaid spotting a couple times for Ohio State football, I almost worked my first NCAA Division I basketball game a couple weeks ago when Ohio State hosted Michigan, but it turned out I wasn't needed.)

It's the kind of detail-oriented work under pressure that I'm good at. I suppose all those years when I kept unofficial statistics in a small notebook as a kid attending University of Dayton basketball games helped me build a skill worthy of a few bucks after all.

I've done football and basketball for years and am comfortable enough with the programs that I can fix errors while the action continues. The spotters help a great deal--sometimes I don't see the action at all--but ultimately the pressure is on me to enter every bit of correct information in a timely manner. The worst thing one can do is get flustered and lose track of what's happening in front of you.

Tonight I did my first college lacrosse game. And? Here's the thing: I'd never seen a lacrosse game in person or watched a full one on television. (I recorded one that aired this week to try and get a sense of how the game is played, but what I watched of it wasn't terribly helpful in telling me how to determine what qualifies as a ground ball, for instance.) Not fully knowing how to interpret what I'm seeing on the field of play makes it intimidating to be responsible for keeping the official record.

One person from outside the school was brought in to help with spotting. She proved to be indispensable, primarily because she could speak with more authority than anyone else calling out the plays and results. If I was going to listen to anyone, it was her. In a case such as this one, the last thing I needed was several people providing their interpretations, a scenario pledged to be avoided but which occurred nonetheless. Imagine three people calling out the information, sometimes regarding plays in rapid succession, and trying to sort through it, especially if I didn't even see what took place.

On top of that, there were several other people in the press box yammering, oftentimes in their attempts to make sense of what they were seeing. The background chatter mixed in with multiple people chiming in with their firm opinions made for a challenging experience. I know I wasn't performing air traffic control, but it took a lot of intense concentration and patience to manage.

In the end I performed adequately, mostly due to being given the proper information in an expedient manner. I was just (mostly) pushing the correct buttons. I do feel like I have a better grasp on what I'm seeing during a lacrosse game, and I expect it will become second nature to me as this inaugural season progresses.

Having survived my first lacrosse game, I marveled that a moonlighting job that began as a way to pull in some much-needed extra money post-graduation has lasted as long as it has. Now I'm even doing it for a sport I don't completely understand. I've worked around a few hundred games and earned a few thousand dollars through the years, all from an ability to watch games and quickly key in codes relating to the actions. How crazy is that?