It is an amazing thing to go six months without seeing a group of people and still feel as though you saw them yesterday. Reconnecting may take a few minutes to catch up, but the old jokes, laughs and relationships are back in a flash. Arriving Thursday came with a lot of excitement. I received a text message from Patrick Jenkins with the great news that I would have transportation from the airport to the hotel and it would be in the company of four other SAAC’ers. A great start to a great week. It started with lunch, then dinner with everyone to catch up with, share stories and meet the newbies. We had great night and got a lot of rest for the day to come.
Meetings in the morning discussed topics that ranged from Awards Benefits and Expenses and Financial Aid (the longest committee name known to man) updates, to the most favorite Amateurism update. All activities were just getting us ready for the fun to come. We began our short trot to our community service activity to pull weeds, pull some more weeds, and sweat a lot in the process. But, it was all for a good cause in the end, and close to 100 of us managed to perform a day’s worth of work in one hour. After community service that afternoon came the real reason for July’s meeting: to compete in kickball. Although Division III was coming off a championship victory last year, we felt our chances to dethrone them were very high. Game One against DII was a hard fought defensive battle, but in the end our ability to manufacture runs with a get-on-base tag-up scheme proved very successful and resulted in victory. After the hard fought win, we had to face the defending champs. They had the advantage of sitting out and scouting our first performance and game planned very well. The first inning was far from mistake free and a deflating loss ensued. We tried our hardest but couldn’t overcome the 3-0 deficit of the first inning. We showed great promise for the next battle and hoped the new replacements were ready for success. After the game, we all engaged in a sportsman-like association wide pizza dinner. It was a great conclusion to an amazing day.
Day Two, on the other hand, was strictly business. We summed up the previous day's activities and got straight to it. We discussed legislation and TV contracts, enforcement and the basketball focus group, FARA and new legislation for the next cycle to finally conclude with the mother of them all, more Commercialism. After all that business, the committee attended our traditional farewell dinner. This is where we all go out to eat together and say our goodbyes to the departing members. This year, just as every other year, we had to say good bye to a great group of committee members. Dinner finished and the good bye speeches began with nothing but laughs, memories and a quite a few tears. Although chaos cut our night short out on the town, we ended the evening together again. The last day was very little business and a lot of goodbyes. We met in the morning to close up the weekend and say our last goodbyes. To end where I started, with the completion of another meeting and four months till our next, there will be no lost time once we all come together again.
Meetings in the morning discussed topics that ranged from Awards Benefits and Expenses and Financial Aid (the longest committee name known to man) updates, to the most favorite Amateurism update. All activities were just getting us ready for the fun to come. We began our short trot to our community service activity to pull weeds, pull some more weeds, and sweat a lot in the process. But, it was all for a good cause in the end, and close to 100 of us managed to perform a day’s worth of work in one hour. After community service that afternoon came the real reason for July’s meeting: to compete in kickball. Although Division III was coming off a championship victory last year, we felt our chances to dethrone them were very high. Game One against DII was a hard fought defensive battle, but in the end our ability to manufacture runs with a get-on-base tag-up scheme proved very successful and resulted in victory. After the hard fought win, we had to face the defending champs. They had the advantage of sitting out and scouting our first performance and game planned very well. The first inning was far from mistake free and a deflating loss ensued. We tried our hardest but couldn’t overcome the 3-0 deficit of the first inning. We showed great promise for the next battle and hoped the new replacements were ready for success. After the game, we all engaged in a sportsman-like association wide pizza dinner. It was a great conclusion to an amazing day.
Day Two, on the other hand, was strictly business. We summed up the previous day's activities and got straight to it. We discussed legislation and TV contracts, enforcement and the basketball focus group, FARA and new legislation for the next cycle to finally conclude with the mother of them all, more Commercialism. After all that business, the committee attended our traditional farewell dinner. This is where we all go out to eat together and say our goodbyes to the departing members. This year, just as every other year, we had to say good bye to a great group of committee members. Dinner finished and the good bye speeches began with nothing but laughs, memories and a quite a few tears. Although chaos cut our night short out on the town, we ended the evening together again. The last day was very little business and a lot of goodbyes. We met in the morning to close up the weekend and say our last goodbyes. To end where I started, with the completion of another meeting and four months till our next, there will be no lost time once we all come together again.
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