And When They Rock.... THEY ROCK!!

Boy, what a night it was...
I get out of work at five to head over to where the "Game for Giving" charity basketball game was to be played, at Genoa high school. In my head I keep thinking "don't freak out Mik, you're used to getting rosters right before start time and still manage to pull it off. Well, I get there and walk in to find that the ABC affiliate is doing their newscast from there. Cool. But it doesn't help with the fact that I have no rosters to familiarize myself with. And on top of that, I don't know if I'm going to get roster of the faculty and staff that are playing the tv station folks in this basketball game. Well, the Good Lord was with me and I decided to stop being to anal about the whole thing. We had two computers up and running to do the video broadcast online and the other to record it for broadcast on tv later. About 40 minutes before tipoff, the newer computer gives us the BSOD (the Blue Screen Of Death)... Which meant it was fried. Oh perfect! could this not get any better? Ugh. So we decide to take our chances (translated to "pray that it works") and ran everything off of ONE computer. Well, for the most part it worked and we were up and running. Then, I knew it was going to be a good night for us when our polo shirts with the TSR logo came in before the game. Changed into those and as they were announcing the starting line-ups (which we finally got at 8 minutes before tipoff), and when they announced the faculty team, the crowd gave it up for all three schools that were represented on the team. Genoa (the host) got a big response. Delta (who saw some nasty damage to some homes in their area) got some loud cheers. But the biggest response was for the Lake high school staff on the roster. People there not only lost their homes and their high school, but 6 lives were lost there. The Lake contingent got a huge standing ovation that lasted almost 2 minutes. It was very moving. And as the news anchor from the station introduced everyone, they even introduced us at TSR and we got a big ovation from the appreciative (not to mention overflow) crowd there. There were so many people that came out that they had to open the auditorium next door to show our broadcast on closed circuit to accomadate the over flow crowd. The game wasn't too bad. The news anchors were pretty darn good if I do say so myself. They were kicking butt however the teachers kept coming back. At halftime it was very emotional and moving. They had a bunch of little contests and stuff. But then they had the fire fighters and rescue people from Lake Township and Millbury come out to center court to take pictures to commemorate the event. The whole crowd rose as one to give them a 4 minute standing ovation. Tears were flowing from so many people. Some of the people who had lost their homes were in attendance, just to get away from everything for a couple of hours and have some fun. My co-host for the event Steve Taylor put it best when he said "with this, now some of the healing can begin." To top off the night, a lady won the 50-50 raffle and her share of it was one thousand and seven hundred dollars. After the game, she brought it back and asked that it be given to a family that was at the game that had lost everything. The place went beserk and tears were flowing freely from the family that received that money, and the person who gave it, and just about everyone else in the place. It really re-affirmed my belief in the human spirit. That despite all the negatives, that people at their core, are generally good. It was an event such as this that proved that these communities will rally around each other when things get tough and no matter how difficult, they will endure. I walked out of the gym into the hallway and walked over to the bake sale table and bought a big plate of chocolate and vanilla gooey cookies and purposely paid nearly double what they were selling for and took them back to the TSR crew to enjoy. I even had a bite of one despite my diabetes. It was an incredible evening this area of tiny hick towns pulled together and raised over forty thousand dollars to help these families with some of the things they need to start over. God gets the credit in this one. Ain't no doubt about it.