So I’d been digging around for my niece’s high school basketball schedule since she made State B this year. Heard rumors games could be shuffled or even canceled. Needed a clear spot to track everything without bouncing between five different sites every morning.
Starting Point: Pure Chaos
Woke up last Monday, grabbed my coffee, and hit the official State B website. Total mess. Found a PDF schedule that was stamped from January 2025. My niece confirmed dates changed since then. Tried the school’s own athletics page next – half the links were broken, and the “Latest Updates” section hadn’t been touched since last season’s finals week. Classic. Pulled up my Notes app and just started listing potential sources: local papers, parents Facebook groups, fan blogs, even asked my sister if the coach sent emails. This was turning into a full-time snooping job.
The Deep Dive: Phone Calls & Screenshots
Spent Tuesday morning playing phone tag. Called the main State B athletics office number – got voicemail twice. Hit up the specific coordinator listed for girls basketball. Nice lady, admitted schedules were “fluid” and venues could change last-minute “due to facility issues”. She suggested relying on push notifications from some scheduling app nobody uses. Yeah, no thanks. Shifted tactics:
- Joined three different private FB groups for parents.
- Found a fan-run forum thread dedicated to State B schedules. Scrolled 89 pages deep.
- Bookmarked Twitter feeds for athletic directors in their division.
- Screenshotted every scrap of schedule info I could find across these spots.
By Wednesday afternoon, my phone gallery was packed with grainy screenshots and my desk had notes everywhere. Needed to corral this madness.
Building My Own Dang Tracker
Opened a fresh Google Sheet Thursday morning. Made columns for Date, Opponent, Game Time, Venue, and most importantly, “Source” and “Last Verified”. Started manually keying in dates from the least outdated PDF I found. Then, piece by piece, cross-referenced each game entry:
- Checked the fan forum posts against parent FB group whispers.
- Compared Twitter rumors to the blurry screenshots of emails some parents posted.
- Flagged anything conflicting in red text.
- For venues, Googled “City Name + High School Gym” addresses because half the listings just said “Home” or “Away Fieldhouse”.
Took me five hours, banging my head against things like whether “7:30 EST” meant Eastern Standard or Daylight (answer: nobody knew). Finally had a sheet that seemed mostly right – for now. Shared it edit-only with my sister and the coach’s contact email because someone has to keep it updated.
Where It Stands Now
Still refreshing those FB groups and Twitter feeds religiously. Heard this morning two March dates might flip-flop. Updated the sheet immediately. It’s janky, entirely manual, and feels like balancing spinning plates, but it’s the only way I found to actually see the full picture. Just saved the kid from driving 3 hours to a canceled game last week. That’s the win.