Scouting Stories: The War (Part 1)

Hertz screwed me again. “No cars available.” Really? I booked a week in advance. They call at 2:30 p.m. the day before I need it and said “Due to high demand we have no cars available. Sorry. We have to cancel.” My question is, if there’s no cars available, why are you allowed to still reserve one online? It makes zero sense. I never had a problem with those people for years, but this has happened twice. I called the manager and in a very Christlike and loving way – of course – told him that neither he nor they would get our business anymore. Good riddance.

Thankfully there was a place just down the road that had something at a good price. When it happened the first time, I had to go all the way to the airport, pay for parking for a day, and take the shuttle because cars are a lot cheaper at the airport, and our company isn’t paying for $100 per day cars. Didn’t get back home till midnight after the drive from the Ohio-West Virginia state line. 

This begins a typical routine for me. Not so much for games around home, but when I travel my fair share, it’s the same routine.  Leave house, go to rental car, pick up car, hit the road. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Football season has begun. 

Or, as I like to call it, the war.

But the war lasts longer than the season itself. I love being a soldier, and it’s a war I like to fight. The war is 10 months long. The first shots at Fort Sumter got fired on August 1, Gettysburg is typically around the spring, and we’re all surrendering at Appomattox around mid-May.

The football season is a grind. I’m busy evaluating a ton – literally, thousands – of prospects. At all age levels. I’m looking at juniors and sophomores and freshmen and even a couple eighth graders. I’m looking at NFL Draft prospects for the Hula Bowl. I have over 40 games on my schedule this year. Can you believe that? Forty games! I’ll see every college team in Indiana, Kentucky, and a good chunk of the SEC. Even Georgia is on my schedule for their game against Vanderbilt. 

I’m heading to Ohio tomorrow. There’s four games up there on this big weekend at the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton. Four Ohio teams going up against four of the best teams in the country. Two of those games are nationally ranked as the top 10 games to watch this weekend.

My mind wonders back to a month ago.  I remember being in the ocean, just floating in the warm waters at 7 a.m., knowing all this was coming. Once the season gets here, I’m fired up, but back then, I felt totally happy – weightless, in God’s hands, staring up at the clear, blue sky, feeling the sun’s kisses. 

That was then and this is now. Already that tan I spent all summer working on is disappearing. In a few weeks, I’ll be whiter than chalk. 

A lot of people wonder what it’s like to do what I do for a living.  So, I’ve decided to take people on an adventure – my job for a year.  There’s a lot of stories, a lot of work, and a lot of football.  And, for me, a lot of faith.

People see going to Power 5 football games on Saturdays and think how cool that is.  What they don’t see are the early mornings and late nights in front of a computer screen.   They don’t see the countless hours of computer work and film watching and driving.  They don’t see getting stranded by a blizzard in Michigan in the winter, driving on ice in Chicago on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, or going to a 7v7 tournament in Kentucky while it rains all day and the grass field turns into a muddy swamp, or standing outside at a camp at the University of Indianapolis while it’s a hundred degrees on the field. So, I’d like to peel back the curtain a little bit and share a few crazy stories on the way.

Welcome aboard.  Enjoy the ride.