Mr. Negativity

Guess what, boys and girls? It's time for Mr. Boss' periodic rant. This time the subject is the ICSTS. Yes, the Indiana Christian Something Tournament Something. You remember last year I ranted about this organization, when I went on and on about the seedings and regions. Well, they're up to it again.

First topic of today's screed, kids, is prophecy. Foreknowledge. Clairvoyance. The ICSTS powers-that-be have already seeded the state volleyball tournament. Yes, even before the season has started. Even before some schools know if they'll even have a team. So apparently they know how teams, that may or may not exist, that are made up of teenagers, will perform several months from now. I wish I had that gift. Maybe if I became an ICSTS official, I would get it.

Next we're going to talk about time. Yes, time. Like time zones, and teenagers' body clocks and stuff like that. Indiana is a strange state (insert Indiana joke here) in that it has two time zones. Also, it has changed its mind about DST and I think now the whole state observes DST. Anyway, six counties in the northwest corner and six counties in the southwest corner are in the central time zone; the rest of the state is in the eastern time zone.

So, there's three teams out of the nineteen (if all the schools have teams - see two paragraphs above) in the Central time zone. Calvary/Calumet is one. Now, the way the tournament is set up, two games out of the eighteen needed to get a champion are scheduled at 8:30. 8:30 Eastern time. Which, of course, is 7:30 Central time. So guess who is scheduled to play at 8:30/7:30 Central? Very good, boys and girls. You are correct. Calvary/Calumet.

Let's continue on the time theme. Even if all teams were in the Eastern time zone, 8:30 is pretty early. Especially for teenagers. So it's a reward to play later in the day, right? And you want to reward your higher seeds, correct? So we must be seeded very low. We must be pretty bad.

But NO! We're the third seed!

Yes third.

Pardon me while I scratch my head for a while.




Thank you.




One more time thing. I may have addressed this from last year, because this goofiness was in place in prior years as well. Let's just say we win our first game. Let's say we're so good, we win even though the girls are still sleeping (shhh.) Well, I guess it's OK that we play so early, because the girls can go back to bed. Why, you ask? Because they don't play again until 4:00 PM!. In the interest of saving me some time, let me just quote from a blog entry made last season: "We got to stay in Indianapolis all day because the tournament people were worried that the girls would be overstressed by playing two matches without several hours in-between. Please. After watching the girls play their guts out over four matches from 10:30 till 6:00 at the Dayspring Volleyball classic, I would beg to differ. Strongly."

So, we get to entertain ourselves in beautiful Lafayette for six hours until we play again. We could watch some of the other teams play, but that would still leave us with several afternoon hours, because the last game of the first round is at 1:00. Same thing the following weekend. We would play at 1:10 (why not 1:00?) and then if we win, we wouldn't play until 7:00 (not 7:10?). I think we will have covered all there is to see in Lafayette the first weekend. Plus we have a two hour drive home after the game, so we won't get home until late on Saturday. At least the time change works in our favor here.

So there you have it. It's still a long time until the tournament. Maybe things will change. I can only hope.