Good week of work!

This past week was a good one at the University of Hartford. During the week, there were three games, two men’s home games and one women’s home game. Last Monday was my first time ushering the balcony area of Chase arena, and everything went as planned. Since it was the lone women’s game of the week, my area wasn’t too crowded with many spectators, making my job a little easier.

Last Wednesday, I went in a little earlier than normal to shadow both Ted and Chris in their daily activities. Both received numerous calls from other department heads in our conference, trying to schedule practice and shoot-around times for their teams when they play us in Hartford. Chris also received a call from the University of Tennessee, who happened to be playing the University of Connecticut in Hartford Saturday afternoon. Apparently there was a scheduling conflict with the XL Center, Uconn’s arena they play at when they are off campus in Hartford. Therefore, Tennessee was forced to find an alternative gym to practice at the Friday before. Chris was able to work out a time where the Tennessee men were able to use our court for their practice before the game. I thought this was really cool, as it gave us a chance to see a more prominent men’s basketball team use our facilities when they had no other place to go.

Last Saturday was by far my longest day at the University of Hartford. I arrived at the arena at noon for a four o’clock game. We were asked to arrive early mainly because classes had finally resumed and we were expecting close to a sell-out crowd with Boston University, our biggest rival, in town. I was given the task of ushering the student section of the gym, which was actually pretty full for the first time since I had started there back in early January. All in all, things went pretty smoothly and Hartford actually pulled off the upset, winning by 4 against the lone team undefeated in conference play.

I have now currently amassed a total of 51 hours working for the University, and I must say, I am enjoying my experience a lot. I have met some great people and everyone has been really nice and outgoing to me. Ted and Chris have been a huge help, and I have definitely learned a lot from them so far about running a Division 1 facility. I’m looking forward this week to spending an entire day with Chris and Ted, to see what goes on during a non-game day.