Snow day WOOOOOO?

So it's Friday, there's a half-foot or so of snow on the ground, and like the many high school student-athletes I cover for a living, I'm at home. Unlike those student-athletes, though, who are likely playing the cool new videogame they got for Christmas (I wanna try that Bioshock game I've heard is fun) or browsing through a hundred Facebook messages, I'm working. Or at least trying to when not staring wistfully out the window.

This is one of the uncool things about working for newspapers. There are dozens of cool things, of course, so don't take this the wrong way ... but holidays and snow days and any other days where other people aren't working aren't one of those things, because we usually are. Martin Luther King Day? Worked it. Fourth of July? Worked it. Christmas Eve? Left the office at noon, but yeah, I worked that morning. Even the big holidays don't feel quite as much like holidays as they used to, because we have two papers to get out the door every Thursday whether it's New Year's or Thanksgiving or Labor Day or not, and whatever work we don't do on our day off gets done in double-time the next day.

This is the part where you, the reader, say "Geez, Jerry, would you like some cheese with that whine?" and I say "Well, yeah, I am whining, but I would like some cheese if you're offering. Some smoked cheddar sounds good right now." Because a) I like cheese b) my whine has a point, sort of: the newspaper that arrives on your doorstep or in the box on the corner has an awful lot of hard work put in by a lot of good people, people that occasionally the sort of small workin'on-a-snow-day sacrifice that has to be made days to make sure that paper is worth your 75 cents (or less, if you're one of those smart people who subscribe).

I am NOT suggesting we're all some kind of martrys for it, mind you. There are a ton of jobs out there that require the same thing or much, much worse, and even a couple--doctors, firemen, etc.--who I guess do things more important than reporting on the local basketball teams. It's just something to remember, occasionally, when you crack open your new paper on Thursdays.

Two quick notes on the area's girls' basketball teams ...

--Perhaps this weeks' biggest game is this coming Monday in Milan, where the Big Red girls will be looking to get their first win of the season against Dundee. The Big Reds have several winnable games to close the season, but Dundee is one of only two home games and arguably more manageable of the two (with the other being Airport, who beat Milan by 16 in their first meeting). It's not "do-or-die" for the Big Reds in terms of a potential winless season, but it might be their single best shot at a W.

The good news? Milan is currently playing their best basketball of the year, having stayed within single digits of both Grosse Ile and St. Mary Catholic Central into the fourth quarter last week (not that straight score comparisons are ever that meaningful, but it might be worth looking at what, say, Airport did against SMCC their last go-round vs. Milan's performance against the Kestrels). Those two teams have easily been the class of the league for multiple seasons, and if the Big Reds can continue that level of play Monday, they'll have a great shot. It won't be easy, but it won't be the scaling-of-Everest challenge of SMCC or Ida, either.

--Entering Thursday night, the Saline girls had lost only four times all season, with two of those L's coming to SEC Red leader and state Division 1 No. 10 Bedford, and one to Bedford's closest SEC challenger in Ann Arbor Huron. The only "upset" Saline had suffered this season came at the hands of Tecumseh, by two points Jan. 4. But that result didn't look quite so surprising this week, after Tecumseh pushed Bedford all the way to the wire in a 42-38 loss. The upshot of that surprise is that a) neither Saline's first loss to the Indians nor Thursday night's road loss in Tecumseh should really be viewed as an "upset" b) a district field that already looked challenging now looks downright murderous. Lincoln looks like the odd team out and Adrian is right around .500, but the other four teams--Bedford, Saline, Tecumseh, and Monroe--are all well over .500 and enjoying terrific seasons. It's going to be a dogfight.