To get geographic, it's 99.4 miles from the 805 down to the Macon Coliseum. Getting down there in reality, however, is a lot longer, a lot tougher, and a lot more nerve racking than merely dodging the traffic.
 
Our girls, who haven't lost since before the Groundhog told us the upcoming weather, faced a St. Francis team with the same scenario. Ten in a row for the Bears. Eleven in a row for the Knights.
 
Sure, it was Hoop it Up Hailee and her green shoes but, just like the boys team, it was those around her who also rose to the challenge. A late basket, a St. Francis miss, kidney stones and nerves erupting, but the buzzer did finally blow in Dahlonega after those last forever six seconds that quickly had our athletic admin assistant calling for another bus that would cart those heroes down I-75 yet again.
 
It took them all – Hailee and Nakhai and Elana and Loriel and those Weaver sisters. It took them all because that's the way it should be – and that's how you get to Macon to begin with. 
 
Moving to the boys, King Caleb has a supporting cast as well, and you can key on him if you want but so many others will make you pay. The boys dunked their way to Dahlonega after beating a good Landmark team; then pulled off a 20-0 second quarter run to rip off a potential Cinderella tag from the Mt Paran jerseys.
 
Devin runs smooth, he looks at ease even while dunking. Mays, Whitty, Worthy, that freshman named Jaden and those point guards. If the stock market had such impressive postgame numbers, people could retire at 40 instead of 65. 
 
Looking at the whole picture, there was a shirt a few years ago that read "Basketball Never Ends" and that's so right. It takes guts to do what you have to do to walk into that Macon Coliseum, knowing that each stride comes with a price – one way or the other.
 
Thanksgiving dinners are eaten while dribbling, our boys racked up sky miles over break heading to the likes of Boston and Arkansas. Our girls, to quote from Neil Young, headed out to where the pavement turned to sand.
 
And you know you're doing something right when Thanksgiving and Christmas turns into spring break. Basketball, after all, is when summer camps have only a comma before fall workouts, another one before the season started.
 
Sure, there may be no crying in baseball, but there are no periods in basketball, either.
 
This is exciting is what I'm getting at. This is magic. Our halls are lighter when champs walk around us, regardless of what the scoreboard reads on Wednesday. And here's hoping while our kids are wiping suntan lotion on the beaches at the Aruba's and Jamaica's and the British Virgin Islands of the world, they – like all of us – take time to appreciate what's happening here.
 
Anyway, there's electricity here at the 805, it's the place where the little ones to the big ones to the parents clap while the teams board the bus. Text messages explode with each basket, calls come in from foreign countries. It's so great when so many people give a darn.
 
And to think, these are nice kids we're talking about, kids who say "thank you" when all you do is read a 28-second lesson plan. That smile and say hello to you in the hallway. That are great young women and young men.
 
Their persistence and their push and their prodding continues to make us proud. The game goes on. And there is no period, never will be in basketball, but it's okay now and then to at least call a time out, take a pause, and say thank you.
 
Because both teams have made it great to simply to be around all this…
 
Stay tuned…