Man, what a freakin’ hassle this turned out to be. Seriously.
So, Tuesday afternoon, came home dead tired after work. Kid suddenly hits me up, all hyped: “Dad! Need the Conway High football schedule! Got to know when the big game is!” Boom. Like I’m some magician. Figured it’d be easy, right? Just a website.
Grabbed the laptop. Opened up the big search engine everyone uses. Typed in “conway high school football schedule”. Hit enter like it was nothing. Expected the schedule to just pop right up, front and center.
Nope.
Got buried under pages about ESPN scores, some national rankings, news articles from last season… freakin’ local news sites wanted me to buy a subscription just to see the calendar? Get outta here! Felt my jaw tighten already.
Okay, fine. Try the official source. Thought, “Their own school site has to have it”. Typed “Conway High School Arkansas” extra careful – remembered the state this time. Found what looked like the main website. Navigated around… “Academics”… “Athletics”… Found “Football”. Clicked triumphantly!
Landing page had player bios, coach’s name, records from 2015… but the actual schedule? Not a sausage. Checked under “Calendar”, “News”, “Resources”… nada. Zip. Zilch. Seriously, how hard is it to post a dang list of games and dates?
Felt myself getting properly annoyed now. Tried the school district site next. Same song. Budget meetings, lunch menus, school board docs… useless. Saw the “Athletic Department” link. Clicked. “Page Not Found.” You’re kidding me? Perfect timing.
Sat back, rubbed my temples. Started remembering all those generic “high school sports schedule” sites. Tried those names again…
- MaxPreps? Had scores from last year, no full schedule.
- Varsity? Wanted login info.
- Some random Arkansas sports page? Sold cheap merch.
Total waste of minutes I’ll never get back. Getting seriously ticked off.
The “Click Everywhere” Phase (Pure Desperation)
Went back to the school site. Started clicking anything that vaguely hinted at sports or events. Found a PDF labeled “Fall Events Packet”. Hope surged! Downloaded it… Slow download… opened it…
Band concerts. Parent-Teacher nights. PTA bake sales. Volleyball tryouts listed, dates marked.Football? One vague mention: “Check online resources.” I almost threw the laptop. Was ready to scream.
The Breakthrough (Dumb Luck Mostly)
Almost gave up. Was gonna call the dang school office tomorrow. But then, scrolling down some local news page buried deep in the search results – maybe the fifth page? – saw a tiny headline preview: “Conway Wampus Cats Open Season Sept. 8 vs…”
Clicked it FAST. The article was about ticket sales, but smack in the second paragraph? A sentence like, “With the season opener approaching Sept. 8, followed by games against Little Rock Central (Sept. 15)…” It casually listed like the first four games!
Holy cow. Used those game dates and opponent names like clues. Searched “Conway Wampus Cats Football Schedule 2024” – using the year and their mascot name this time. BOOM.
First result wasn’t even a big site. Some obscure Arkansas high school athletic association portal page I swear wasn’t there before. Opened it. Plain text, basic HTML table. Dates. Opponents. Locations. Home and away. The WHOLE SCHEDULE.
Felt equal parts relief and pure rage. All that time. All that clicking. Ended up on some niche site I didn’t even know existed. Copied the dates into my phone calendar immediately. Saved that link like it was gold. Done. Finally.
Lesson learned? Public school schedules are weirdly guarded treasures buried under miles of useless websites. Next time my kid asks? Maybe try yelling into a pillow first. Might be faster.