So anyway I saw folks asking bout Wichita East football dates online, figured hey why not just compile the whole thing myself? Started easy – grabbed my laptop around breakfast time, coffee steaming next to me, you know the drill.
The Annoying Hunting Part
First stop? Official school district athletics site. Big mistake. Their calendar page looked like something my grandma designed last century. Scrolled forever, found last year’s schedule still up top like nobody cared. Current season stuff buried under layers of “events” and “news” tabs. Finally found a tiny link saying “Fall Sports” – clicked it. Loading… loading… error message. Refreshed. Got a PDF download button instead. Why? No idea.
Opened the PDF. Dates were all there but messy – no opponent names, just “Away Game @ Stadium Name”. Totally useless. Needed names. Searched “Wichita East High football 2024 opponents” next. First page full of shady ticketing sites & local news articles from two seasons back. Clicked one promising headline – article just talked coach’s retirement, no schedule. Felt like chasing my own tail.
Phone Calls & Wrong Numbers
Gave up on websites. Phoned the school’s main office. Nice lady picked up but sounded confused. “Athletics? Oh honey, you need Athletics Director direct line.” Gave me a number. Dialed it. Busy signal. Tried again after lunch. Someone else answered – said football schedules were managed by Coach Johnson’s secretary. Transferred me. Voicemail. Left a message.
Waited an hour. Nada. Called back main office – got routed to student activities department by accident. Guy there said try the booster club Facebook page. Reluctantly logged into Facebook (hate that place). Booster club page last updated June. People commenting “Scedule??” under old posts. Scrolled – bingo! Some parent admin pinned a blurry photo of handwritten dates in August comments. Progress! But couldn’t read half the opponent names. Looked like “vs. South High??” and “@ West – TBD”.
Finally Locking It Down
Finally got through Coach’s secretary next morning. Bless that woman. She rattled off dates rapid-fire while I typed frantically. Told me preseason scrimmage was already done last weekend – great, missed that. Home opener vs. Northwest Sept 6th. Had me repeat every date back. “No no,” she cut in, “Derby game moved from Oct 11th to Oct 12th – stadium conflict.” Noted that. She even texted me a clean Google Doc link later (surprise – it actually worked).
Copied everything simple into my own list:
- Sept 6: vs. Northwest High (Home) 7pm
- Sept 13: @ South High 7:30pm
- Sept 20: vs. Heights High (Home) 7pm
- Sept 27: @ Kapaun Mt. Carmel 7:30pm
- Oct 4: BYE WEEK (No Game)
- Oct 12: vs. Derby High (Home) moved from 11th 6pm
- Oct 18: @ West High 7pm
- Oct 25: vs. North High (Senior Night) 7pm
Ran it past the secretary again. “Yep, that’s it hon. ‘Til someone changes Derby again!” Hung up, sighed loud. Shoulda been a ten-minute thing. Took me two damn days. Moral? High school football schedules ain’t simple. Now if someone asks? Point ’em here. Done fighting the internet ghosts.