Contact Debacle

Now with the Ireland trip done, I would like to add the funniest and best stories I’ve had in coaching. Again, this is more so I have a record of all the ridiculous things that happen, but if you read them you will probably be entertained. I figured I’d go reverse chronological order, since the most recent ones are freshest in my mind.

Sat. Dec 11, 2010
After a full day of watching pretty good high school basketball games my eyes are tired and it is time to take out the contacts. I’ve recently changed to the type of cleaner that requires the little cylindrical container and the potent solution. What makes it potent is that once your contacts are immersed they are unwearable for four hours. This seems like superfluous information, but just wait. So, I take my contacts out and put them in the container. I then grab my glasses case and open it to find no glasses. I think I would have noticed this walking into the gym, but I was on my stupid cell phone. Somehow I did not notice the difference in weight or the lack of any rattle from within the case. Now I am presented with the dilemma of it being 9:15 at night, two hours away from home and unwearable contacts for the next four hours. At this point I figure I will use water to clean the contacts and hope they will not burn my eyes like a hot poker from a fire. I now have to traverse from the hospitality room to the restroom. For those who do not know I am a 7.0 contact strength. These means I cannot make out a face from more than 10 inches. Thankfully I am at a gym where I know no one so I don’t have to have that awkward, “Hi Coach Haggerty,” while I think who the heck is talking to me. So I rinse and clean and rinse and clean and put a contact in my left eye. All good for maybe one second and then it feels as if someone lit a charcoal fire in my face. I feel like the poor girl from Amazing Race who took a watermelon to the face. I highly recommend viewing that.



With Plan A an unmistakable disaster I go out to the car (in 30 degree weather) to see if the glasses are hiding in there, even though I know they are not. On the way out I bump into a coach who claims he works out all the best players in Atlanta and lucky enough for me one of them came walking up. He was player of the year in a great region last year. So I shake his hand and blindly stare at him thinking this kid could have three eyes and a Mohawk two feet tall and I will never know. I depart and there is a small set of steps I don’t even see and almost tumble to my death. Glasses are not in the car, so now I wait another 45 minutes and thankfully the soaking of the contacts makes them wearable. But they are blurry and I need to peal them off my eye and kind of rub them around the side of my eye to build up the natural contact solution – tears. Luckily the girls game took so long I missed none of the game I came to see. I also learned a lesson in coaching (other than always be sure you have your glasses). I learned never to schedule an opponent you will have later for a scrimmage. Miller Grove beat Columbia by 40 in a scrimmage just three weeks ago. So Miller Grove came in thinking what a joke and Columbia came in determined to not get embarrassed. Well, Columbia wins by four. And thankfully I was able to watch it happen and even more importantly drive two hours home.