“G-Mart is on fire in the rain” is a comment that I shamelessly copyright-infringed upon for this week’s football article when I saw it posted on the Indian River High School sports app live scoreboard.
Partly because I knew that IR lacrosse coach Jerry Sheridan probably wouldn’t mind that I stole his reference to junior running back George Martin’s 4 touchdown, 102-yard performance in the Indians’ 48-0 against Seaford in the pouring rain, but mostly because it was a juxtaposition that I doubted that even Jim Nantz and Phill Simms themselves could have concocted.
Speaking of Jim Nantz and Phill Simms, by the way, neither of the CBS commentators were present for last Thursday night’s game between Indian River and Seaford, instead opting to call the Ravens/Steelers game from a warm, dry booth somewhere in Pittsburgh. Which — let’s face it — given the play in that game and the play of the IR game, was a huge mistake on both of their parts.
And speaking of mistakes, by the way, even after the game was bumped up to Thursday night to try to avoid potentially even worse weather from an approaching Hurricane Joaquin and an already pretty-much-there nor’easter, I decided that stopping at WaWa for a plastic bag to protect my camera was all the preparation I needed for horizontal rainfall and howling winds.
Oh, and speaking of cameras, by the way, Point photographer Chris Clark wouldn’t be there to help out — not because of yet another “Matlock” marathon, but because of yet another surf vacation he was on, this time in Florida, where, by the way, Hurricane Jaoquin was fast approaching.
But even though I had also forgotten my raincoat, none of that seemed to matter to either the players or the fans, or to Indians head coach Phill Townsend, who after the game told me that “this is just football.” And it was.
While the nation was watching missed field goals from their living rooms, Indian River fans were out in the stands with their umbrellas and their ponchos, watching the Indians rack up seven touchdowns on their way to their first victory of the season, to start 1-0 in the South.
I have to give it to them for staying out there, as at halftime, I decided to run up to the press box for cover when the WaWa bag stopped working so well, and there I was able to catch the rest of the game, and Krash’s commentary was much more interesting that Nantz and Simms probably was anyway.
And even though I looked down to see that I was standing up to my ankles in water during the post-game interview — and counting myself lucky that I had sprung for the waterproof case on my new iPhone — when I cranked the heat in my car and tried to dry off my phone a little so that I could update the score online, I couldn’t help be glad that I wasn’t in Pittsburgh… or in Florida, for that matter.