Went to a varsity boys game featuring two unbeaten teams and it turns out it was the under card.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty intense for me in terms of work outside of Huskerland, so my basketball has been limited. (That will change after the first of the year.) But with undefeated Milford traveling to face undefeated Ashland-Greenwood last Saturday afternoon I needed to be there, I could just tell, but wasn’t certain why.

Later I would become certain why.

As for the battle of unbeatens let me tell you this - Ashland-Greenwood is good. With the return of senior superstar Cale Jacobsen after last year’s terrible ACL injury that wiped out his junior season - Cale looked stronger than ever and his skills were pretty much top notch, like always - the Bluejays are a complete and talented team. Gonna be hard to beat.

Then again they host another unbeaten tomorrow (Tuesday) night when old friend Wahoo comes calling. Stay tuned.

Before we get away from Cale and his own journey, he was part of a really pregame ceremony where the Ashland-Greenwood basketball program and community at large honored him as part of the Bluejays’ 1,000 point career scoring club. Also on hand were three of the other for A-G players to reach the milestone, including Brian Pike, Tyler Craven and Roger Barber, with a fourth, Matt Johnson, unable to attend.

They trotted the four of them out onto the court, had a quick reminder for the boys of what something called a “chest pass” looked like before the crowd which had packed the gym showered them with well-deserved applause. (Of course all of these 1,000 point scorers had some assists in their career, we are only teasing. Right?)

Very cool. Maybe that’s why I needed to be there.

As for the game, remember that part about the Bluejays being a complete and talented team that is gonna be hard to beat? That became more evident as the late afternoon wore on, Big Blue pulling away from Milford for a 65-39 victory.

My boy Evan Shepard led the winners with 13 points, 6-6 post Max Parker scored 12, Cale got his 11, his younger brother Dane the same. Lots of different ways to win, that’s what the Bluejays have. And you do remember Milford won its first 26 games last season, correct?

Superior varsity basketball by a potential state championship team. Maybe that’s why I needed to be there.

Then again, maybe not.

* Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away (like, Jefferson County, Nebraska) I met my wife, the lovely and talented Huskerland Penni. (Christmas is right around the corner, boys, I can’t come up short now...)

Like my late father-in-law, the great Harry Abariotes once told me, Penni is the most compassionate person he ever knew. Same here. And that was never more apparent that when she was working in the mental retardation field, first in Fairbury, where we met, and later in Cozad. Penni was a tremendous, caring advocate for her “clients” and she taught me, the uninitiated, about her people and their cause.

With that back story on the record we fast forward (huh? fast forward? didn’t that already happen?) to last Saturday when I walked down the east hallway at dear old Ashland-Greenwood High, checking in and asking for a program. And I got one. And then I was handed another.

The nice lady who handed me the program said something else, but with the ambient noise wafing through the hallway, and my not expecting to hear anything additional, I didn’t catch what she said. But now I had two programs.

Just a couple of steps away was the door to the gym. Game time was set for 3:45 and I was 15 minutes early, perfect timing. But when I peered into the gym there was already a game going on.

And it was intense.

The gym was packed (something glorious I will never again take for granted, thanks to COVID) and the crowd was boisterous. It felt more like a district final than a Saturday afternoon game in December and once I scanned the floor I knew why.

* Prior to meeting my wife I had virtually no contact with mentally handicapped people. No particular reason, there were simply none in my personal universe. While that was true I had already formed an opinion of mentally handicapped people, nothing mean but it involved pity more any other emotion. Basically, that’s too bad.

Then I met Penn. (I know this is getting long but stay with me.) After we were married and moved to Callaway she got a job at South Central Developmental Services in Cozad where she did her best work ever, serving as workshop director, and later social worker for the clients. She was awesome in that setting, so good with the clients, such a remarkable advocate who wanted to make sure they were treated “as regular people,” with no sugar coating.

She did that because they are regular people, and here is an example why.

One of her clients in Cozad was a grown man named Steve, and Steve was a sports fan, big sports fan. Though he was in his late 20s he was still a student manager for the boys athletic teams at Lexington High School and loved wearing his LHS letter jacket, decked out as it was with all of his awards, and there were many. We often talked sports when I would be around the workshop, usually picking Penn up after work.

Fast forward again, this time, oh, 25 years or so. Out doing my Huskerland thing I walk into the gym at Cozad and who should be standing there but Steve...in his letter jacket, which looked good as new. (wink) Steve’s a talker, and he was talking about a hundred miles an hour to another person at the time, so not wanting to interrupt I started to walk on by. Not so fast, Bob.

As I passed by Steve turned and without hardly missing a beat simple said, “Hey, Bob,” and turned to his friend to finish his conversation. Not even “regular people” do that kind of thing, not after 25 years, not seamlessly working me into a full sentence like that.

* The reason the Ashland gym was rocking was because there was a game going on, one featuring the Unified team members from Milford and Ashland-Greenwood. And it was no “squeeze them in at halftime” number, it was a full-on game, with a scoreboard running and officials and stuff. Two ten-minute halves and when I walked in, to be honest, Milford was sticking it to Ashland. I’m smiling pretty big while I write that part...

Subbing four and five students at a time, you had a little bit of everything in this game. Milford made a couple of threes, there was a sensational post pass, some up-in-your-grill defense and lots of high fives between the competitors. Meanwhile, the crowd roared almost every possession and standing there on the baseline I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry with happiness for the students and their families, so I did both.

Us humans, we can be pretty cool sometimes.

I have seen a lot of stuff over the Huskerland years but between what I was watching in person that day, and thinking back to my wife’s work in the mental retardation field and what she and the clients taught me all those years ago, it will be pretty hard to top last Saturday afternoon in Ashland.

So I was right, I did need to be there, and now I am certain why.