That used to be the Bump weekend.
When I first got involved in all of this, Bump was the
second weekend of December. In one of the early years before I was the coach,
the snow started on Saturday and tournament ended early and everyone was sent
home. Since we were housing kids from North Carolina, they were sent back to
our house. They had never personally seen snow before. We had to explain to them
that we old hands in the snow business always thought it prudent to put on a
coat before venturing out to play in it.
I don’t recall ending the tournament early during the years
on my watch, but I do remember worrying about the weather reports, starting
sometime around July. I would obsess over the forecast. One year I did cancel
the tournament on the Thursday morning. I prayed and prayed that the storm
would 1) come and 2) be devastating. The last thing you want to do is cancel
for the odd flurry. I remember that the snow on Friday was up to my knees. I
was very happy to see that.
When Newburgh Free Academy eliminated their tournament the
second week in November, I was on it immediately. If I didn’t take it, someone
else would, so I planted my flag before anyone else even knew the ground was
soft. Ridge, which had been in January, looked longingly on the December
weekend and planted its flag on the old Bump dates. In about the decade or so
of running on that weekend, Ridge has had to shut down early twice. Hen Hud
obviously got out while the getting was good.
Of course, when I vacated the NFA weekend, Scarsdale,
formerly in the dead of winter, immediately lifted its nose in the air, smelled
the leafy autumn air of November, and slid right in before anyone else was even
thinking about it.
Weekends are like that. There’s good ones and there’s bad
ones, but one definite thing is that they are possessions. You have your
weekend, and you stay with it. First of all, a lot of schools have to plan
their travel the previous year, so you’d better be when they expect you to be.
And second of all, these weekends are not mentally fungible. Yes, changes can
happen, but only following catastrophic events, like a tournament shutting down,
which does occur occasionally. Around here, it’s always colleges that think
they can make a quick buck running a high school tournament, and when we tell
them that no one will show up if they schedule in the middle of May, decide to
run against an established event. We talk them out of that, too, but they are
always out there, champing at the bit. And winter high school events, for the
most part, would much rather be autumn high school events.
Ah, debate weekends. They’re like boats. Either you own one
or you don’t. And, if you do own one, you probably want to own a better one. And,
if you do own one, whenever it is, it will no doubt take over your life. The
worst thing that can happen, after having it take over your life for months and
months, is having to cancel it in advance. I’ve done it. JV has done it. We made
Columbia do it. Lakeland has done it. It’s the nature of winter: what can you
do?
(Shorter version of this post: Ridge got cancelled right
after prelims. It was the right decision. It was snowing away, but it seems as
if everyone got home safely. So it goes.)
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