Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
In addition to being the Sports Editor, I also do broadcasting for IdahoSports.com, which streams high school sports over the internet. I am currently in a four week span where I will be covering three different basketball tournaments for two different jobs. The girl’s high school state tournament was February 18-20 in the Boise area.
I am back for a week before I drive back to Boise to cover the boy’s tournament where I will then be back in Pocatello for three days before I drive to Reno to cover the Big Sky Conference Tournament for this paper. It is a lot of work and not a lot of school. I have had to work with professors to keep up with classes, do paper layouts via text message, and somehow get eight hours of sleep in the middle of all of this.
I barely have time to breathe, let alone write this article. But I love it.
Last Tuesday night, the night before I left for the girl’s tournament, I was going to class, researching teams, and studying for a total of 16 hours. But it was worth it.
This week, I will be broadcasting district tournament games throughout the week and once Thursday hits, it is more preparation, more homework and more sleepless nights.
For the Big Sky Tournament, I will go to class Monday-Wednesday and then bust out on I-86 westbound in route to the great state of Nevada, about an eight hour drive each way.
In total, I will have driven over 2,100 miles when it is all said and done and will be missing six days of school over the course of four weeks.
Really though, three trips in four weeks, does it get any better than that?
Let’s get this clear, I am not writing this to throw a pity party. I am writing this because I love what I do. I have two of the greatest jobs on the face of the planet. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of being a famous broadcaster.
During the summer, I would go into my backyard and play baseball by myself, not because I didn’t have any friends, but because I wanted to be alone so I could be a pretend broadcaster. I continued to do this all the way up until my senior year of high school.
I created an entire league. I made fake rosters, fake schedules and even made a fake itinerary that my fake team would follow throughout the day.
When I wasn’t pretending to be a sports broadcaster, I was fantasizing about being the next great sports writer.
I think it is safe to say that I am a sports nerd and I am one of those people who will pay top-dollar to get a ticket to a sporting event. And now you’re telling me you are going to pay me to attend those events and all I have to do is write about what happened?
Where do I sign?
Even though I am absolutely swamped with preparation and school work, barely having time to grab a cup of coffee, these four weeks have been the greatest four weeks of my life.
I don’t need to sleep, because I am living in a dream.
