High School Basketball Begins!

Omaha Central opened its season by playing Omaha South, the defending Class A state champion.

Not too many weeks after the football season came to a close, high school basketball got underway tonight with Omaha Central hosting defending Class A state boys basketball champion Omaha South.
This was also the debut of our Striv.TV regular season basketball broadcasts. Omaha South's girls beat the Eagles in the opener and the Central boys took the Packers to overtime and missed a potential game-winner in the final seconds.

I did myself a favor by buying a small, dry erase board. It worked well in passing along details to the announcers. And it will save on paper, sticky notes and index cards, many of which blew off the top of the press box during football season.

The new shirts for the broadcast crew, by the way, come via Dr. Keith Bigsby. Central's principal emeritus got the Central High Foundation to foot the bill for them. They are nice! And my new threads also gave some students a scare. I was using the restroom at halftime when a bunch of students came in with something not-so-good in mind. But before anything could go down, I heard one of them say to the others, "Guys, there's a teacher in here!"

From left: Julia (camera), Olivia (producer), Isaac (color) and Alec (play-by-play).

I am officially an Eagle now.

Basketball Begins

Julia got some help getting started from former Central High principal, Dr. Keith Bigsby.

Julia continued her help behind the scenes with the Central High athletic teams tonight, assisting on the striv.tv broadcast of the girls basketball game.

She is a bit busier with this sport. In volleyball, she got the broadcast to commercial during timeouts. In basketball, she is still doing this, plus keeping the score and running the clock. It's a lot of work for a freshman, but she is a master multi-tasker and pulled it off with flying colors.

I pitched in to help the broadcast team on the stats. It was a bit of a shock to the system, but after awhile, it all came back to me. I was only wishing I still had my stat forms. (They are probably tucked away in a box somewhere or on a floppy disk!)

Uh Oh.

Julia spotted this. She said she could hear sirens as the buses were pulling away from school.

Julia On The Video Crew

Central ended up winning, 2-1, against Lincoln High.

Julia took a big step today, becoming part of the Omaha Central video crew for home sporting events.

This all started last year when Sean mentioned to Ms. Brown, the varsity volleyball coach, that Julia might be a good one to recruit to help out this season. He reminded Ms. Brown about this during open house earlier in September. But what Julia did not immediately realize was that the assistant athletic director had sent her an email about it back in September. It was not until today, Oct. 1, that she discovered the message.

But like Julia does, she moved quickly and made all the arrangements to be part of the volleyball match tonight. She's a quick learner and picked up on what needs to be done, even learning how the commercials are inserted into the broadcast. ("You can put one right in the middle of the action if you want, dad," she said.)

Now she has a full schedule of volleyball matches to attend later this month. It sounds exciting.

First Day of School

Emily and Lauren rode along with Julia and me on the first day of school.

A Little Bit Of Trouble

Sean came to the rescue of Emily and Lauren, who had the Suburban break down en route to school.

As Seen On SnapChat

This made me smile. And I met Captain Kangaroo in Kearney in 1985.

Central High Open House

Lauren pointed out her pottery that was on display in the art room.

Julia was invited to attend an open house for eighth graders at Central High School today. But there was one problem: she didn't want to go. Well, she didn't want to go if Lauren went.

I told Julia having Lauren tag along was to her advantage. Lauren is the "known commodity" there and Emily was not able to attend since she was at work.

Even though the temperature was below 10 degrees, Julia insisted on staying in the van when we got there (and it was not going to be running!). So Lauren and I went in and looked around. After making the rounds to see a few coaches and teachers, we returned to the van and gave Julia one more chance to go inside. This time, she did and everything went well. She got to see the art department and talk to a few teachers.

Emily had some pottery on display.

This is pretty cool. Good job, Emily!

Central High Football

It was a near-capacity crowd for the showdown between Central and North.

Each year, I try to get all of the girls to at least one Omaha Central football and basketball game. Tonight was the night for football and fortunately, the weather wasn't too cold. It was a bit windy out of the north, so we sat on the south side of the press box, in the upper deck.

Omaha North is the defending Class A state football champion. So we knew it would be a tough game for the Eagles. And, with a few lucky bounces, Central was right in it up until the end. Unfortunately, a potential game-tying touchdown drive ended in an interception as North prevailed, 35-28. But it was a lot of fun.

Who's missing? One of the Central students! (Emily had to work.)

Veronica and I were warm in our nice stocking caps.

Darn.

This was a nice treat waiting at home. Hot chocolate – and more chocolate!

Purple Feather Club

Lauren (left) joined Emily in Central High's Purple Feather Club.

We learned today that both Emily and now Lauren are both members of Central High School's "Purple Feather Honor Society."
Membership is limited to students who have at least a 3.5 grade point average.

Emily has been a member of the Purple Feather club since 2012.  Members receive a nice water bottle, a morning off from classwork with treats and a purple feather, of course.

This year's photo session at the house was marked by an epic photobomb by Olivia (seen above, entering the frame at left).

The 100th Road Show

This was the scenic backdrop for Central's 100th edition of its "Road Show."

Omaha Central's "Road Show" is really a talent show. Singing, dancing, performances of all types. And we got to see it all – three times in fact.

The Road Show began as a fundraiser to help pay for student athletics and senior projects. The format, according to the program (at right) hasn't changed much – except now there is an emcee or voice-overs. Live musical accompaniment has changed to recorded music for many acts. The show used to be a fall event. Now it takes place in May.

I had the idea – a year ago – that the show should begin with the opening of a time capsule. This large container would be unsealed – to the flair of smoke and a loud hissing sound – to reveal a hunch-backed, bearded old man, complete with cane. He would look – bewildered – at the audience, then shuffle off stage. But Emily and Lauren didn't have the buy-in on it.

Flash forward to this weekend and Thursday night was the "Alumni Road Show," where only two acts from this year's standard show were selected to perform with select alumni. Former Eagle Peter Buffett (Warren Buffett's son) comprised the first half of the show with his music and musings. Lindsay Bloom, a 1968 graduate was another featured performer who formerly starred on “Dallas,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and the “Mike Hammer” series.

Ultimately, we would see the student show on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. It was quite an (expensive) time!

We spotted Emily (back to the camera) working on stage before the show.

Lindsay Bloom Nutter sang a rousing number to open the show's second half.

Lauren (left), Julia and I attended the alumni road show Thursday night.

This band will forever be remembered by Emily. Ask her – or any of the girls – why.

Confetti was everywhere afterwards.

Olivia (left) and Julia helped clean it all up.

Even after days of working long hours, Emily seemed to be enjoying herself.

Conference Time!

Emily (left) and Lauren both attended their conferences at Omaha Central.

The Busiest Day

It was another wet drive to the start this morning.

Writing blog entries at 1:30 a.m. is becoming the norm at Paris-Nice. But there's only one more day to go and so far, I'm a perfect six-for-six on blogging the stages. So I will forge on and hack out one more entry.

For the record, this was one of the busiest days I have experienced in on-site work. Here's a quick glance at only my late afternoon agenda:

• Tweeted a race result and posted a photo.
• Rode 12 km back to the hotel (good decision since it took our bus 75 minutes).
• Wrote two reports.
• Organized a roundtable press event.
• Oversaw a behind-the-scenes photo shoot.
• Monitored two other rider interviews at the hotel.
• Produced three interviews for our Audio Line.

Click on this to enlarge and see if you can spot the mistake.

I'm sure I have forgetting something in there (besides the fact I missed dinner), but that's about the extent of things.

Back in the U.S., Creighton won to make the Missouri Valley Conference championship game, Omaha Central won its fourth straight state boys basketball title and there's a blizzard brewing over Denver. And Daylight Saving Time begins later today.

So now you're caught up. On to the photos:

Some of my breakfast. And there's the Blackberry phone case I've misplaced.

The restaurant where we ate breakfast this morning was just a door down from the hotel.

I worked in the hotel lobby this morning. Check out the "point internet."

Here is what was on the menu.

I caught up to these folks on the bike path on the way back to the hotel.

Small desk but big bed. And all well-lit.

And a little bed beneath the mirror and TV.

There's a footwasher! First one this trip.

Lots of little amenities around the sink.

Back At The Civic Auditorium

Omaha Central beat Omaha South for the Metro Conference title.

Emily took in a rare basketball game tonight at the Metro Conference Holiday Tournament, as Omaha Central played Omaha South for the championship. I can recall watching countless Creighton University basketball games there. I also covered the Big 8 volleyball tournament there in the early 1990s. And I did the stats for the Omaha Beef during six or seven seasons of play there.

The Carpool Kids

My sister, Bridget (right), picked up a few familiar faces from school.
From left: Emily, Julia and Veronica.
Photo courtesy: Bridget Brooks.

Road Trip To Lincoln

Emily (left) starred in the opening scene, holding a surf board (that she painted).

Program page listing Omaha Central's cast and crew.

We made the first of what I expect will be many, many trips to Lincoln for school events today when we drove to Lincoln North Star High School for the District A-1 One Act Play competition. This was my first time at the high school, which (thankfully) is located on the outskirts of town, closest to Omaha. Emily traveled on the school bus while we followed (hours later) and stopped to eat lunch at Arby's. Lauren bailed on us at the last minute, which was just fine since student admission was $4.

If you missed our prior entry on the first public performance of "A Midsummer Night in the OC," you can read about it here. Today's audience consisted primarily of students from the other seven schools on hand, plus a smattering of parents. It appeared Julia, Olivia and Veronica were the only small-school students there. Judging by the laughs and positive audience reaction, the play went over very well with the teenage crowd. Emily and her classmates were really into the performance and I judged it the best of the four plays we watched.

In the end, Omaha Central finished fourth behind winner Gretna, runner-up Lincoln North Star and a school I can't recall. We didn't see any of the three performances that finished ahead of Central, but we heard one of them made people cry.

A bit out of order, but we did stop at Arby's for lunch. Yum.

The drive to Lincoln was a bit foggy and wet. But there was no snow.

Lincoln North Star is pretty new, built in the last 10 years.

Shari (with Veronica) was responsible for the shark's make-up job. Check it out here.

Omaha Central had the most actors receiving outstanding performance awards.

Veronica was pretty sacked out by the end of the drive home.