The Problem That Started It All
My nephew joined the Linton Miner Middle School football team this year. Great kid, loves the sport. Thing is, me and his mom, we both work crazy hours. Last season? Missed half his games. Why? We never seemed to know exactly when or where they were playing until it was almost too late. Posters at the school? Easy to miss. Announcements over the intercom? Never seemed to reach us adults. Needed a better way.
The Digital Treasure Hunt (That Wasn’t Easy)
Figured it’d be simple. Opened my laptop first thing Saturday morning, coffee in hand, ready to find the official schedule.
- Checked the School Website: Big mistake. Found the school site easy enough. Navigated to “Athletics”. Football section? Mostly just rules and coach bios. Saw something about a “calendar”. Clicked it. Generic district events. Found a “Friday Movie Night” listing, but zilch about football schedules for 2024. Dead end.
- Dug into Social Media: Opened that popular blue-and-white F-app. Searched for the school’s name. Found the main school page, sure. Scrolled and scrolled. Announcements about the bake sale, the art show… saw last year’s football championship post, but nada for this season. Felt annoyed.
- Tried Local News Sites: Typed “Linton Miner Middle School football schedule” into a search engine. A bunch of links popped up, looked promising! Clicked the first one… it was an article about the 2022 season. Clicked another… same story. Frustrating ghost town of outdated info.
- Emailed the Athletic Director: Found an email address buried deep on the school site. Sent a polite request for the game schedule. Waited. And waited. Checked junk mail constantly. Nothing. It was like shouting into a void.
The Breakthrough (Surprisingly Low-Tech)
Got desperate. At the grocery store checkout last Tuesday, bumped into another parent whose kid plays on the team. Venting about my game info struggle. He chuckles.
“Yeah, that online stuff’s useless. They send texts.”
Text alerts? Seriously? He showed me his phone. Simple messages like “Game tonight @ 6 PM vs Eastvale – home field“. That was it. The holy grail.
Asked him how to get on that list. “Gotta talk to Coach Davis,” he said. “Give him your number.”
Taking Action
Didn’t waste time. Called the school main office the next morning. Asked to be put through to Coach Davis. Got his voicemail. Left a very clear message:
“Hi Coach Davis, this is Mark Thompson, Tommy Thompson’s uncle. Need to get on the football game text alert list for updates. My number is (insert actual number here). Please add me. Thank you!”
The Sweet Result
Later that afternoon? Phone buzzes. New text message:
“Coach Davis (LM Football): Added to alerts list for 2024 season.”
Felt so stupidly relieved! Had to jump through way more hoops than necessary, but finally found the one thing that actually works. First alert came yesterday:
“Game tomorrow vs Northridge. 5 PM kickoff. AWAY game. Meet at school lot @ 3:45 for bus.”
Perfect. Exactly what we needed. Don’t have to scramble or guess anymore. Simple texts doing the heavy lifting where fancy websites and emails failed miserably.