For the record, I would have left the game. At least I think I would have.

It was Saturday, Sept. 6, 2003, and my soon-to-be wife was very pregnant. Like ready to pop pregnant.

We had an appointment for Wednesday, Sept. 10 for her to be induced into giving birth, and we were getting ready to finally meet our daughter.

But Montana Tech and Carroll College opened the football season at Alumni Coliseum in Butte that Saturday night. It was a game I had been looking forward to all summer.

I was a sportswriter at The Montana Standard, and I had the Tech football beat. That meant I got to be on the sideline as defending NAIA national champion Carroll beat Tech 19-16 in a double-overtime thriller.

Zach Titus booted a 25-yard field goal in the second overtime to give the Saints the win in what was truly one of the best games in the history of one of the best rivalries in the NAIA.

As the game was going into that second overtime, though, my phone rang. I opened the old flip phone to see that it was the pregnant Kim calling. I figured she knew I was busy, so there was only one reason to call.

The baby was coming, and I had to take her to the hospital.

Created with GIMP

I answered the phone and said, “I’m not leaving this game.” Or maybe I said, “I can’t leave this game.”

Either way, that is not what you are supposed to say when the mother of your soon-to-be born child calls you. I couldn’t help it, though. I was caught up in the moment.

I mean, we’re talking about Tech-Carroll here.

The timing couldn’t be worse. It was after 9 p.m., and I had to get the story written on deadline. I kept my own stats because the team-kept stats were not reliable back then.

Also, I had my own way of keeping notes. Had I handed them to one of my coworkers, there was no way they could have used them to write a story.

Plus, they were busy covering their games. So, my coworkers were counting on me to write a story that was probably going to be the most-read story in the paper that Sunday. The readers were also counting on me to write that story.

I was part of a team, and I was going to need Kim to wait a few hours because to have the baby. The baby was going to have to hold on and take one for the team.

Luckily, she didn’t have to do that. Kim wasn’t calling about the baby. She was probably just bored at home watching television and wanted to talk to someone.

“Oh,” she replied to my ridiculously insensitive comment. “I forgot you had the game tonight.”

While I have lots of examples that point to the contrary over the years, that night my soon-to-be wife had to be the most understanding and forgiving woman in the world.

She wasn’t even mad at me for answering the phone like a boob.

Our daughter was born, as scheduled, on Sept. 10, and Kim Mulcahy married me the next April. Last week we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We have three kids and two dogs, and life is good.

I wouldn’t trade lives with any man — not even Scottie Scheffler. I would trade pocketbooks with him, but not lives.

My wife, on the other hand, probably could have done better with a guy like Scottie. At least she could have in September of 2003.

This weekend Scheffler won his second Masters title. Like with me in September of 2003, Scheffler is about to be a father. His wife, Meredith, is due to give birth to the couple’s first child this week.

Like with our first baby, the Scheffler’s bundle of joy waited until after the big sporting event to be born. Unlike me, though, Scheffler was more than ready to walk away from his big-time sporting event.

Scheffler was the favorite to win the tournament, and he said he would leave Augusta National “at a moment’s notice” if Meredith went into labor.

I would like to have seen what he had done had he gotten the call going into the back nine on Sunday, though. Maybe he would have left. Or maybe he would have said, “Hey, babe, hold on for a few more hours and then I’ll jump on a plane.”

Or, if he was like me, he would yell, “I am not leaving this golf course.”

Of course, Scheffler had a couple of things going for him that I did not.

For one, he is a multi-millionaire. Counting his winnings from the Masters, Scheffler has made $15.1 million in official PGA Tour earnings in 2024 alone. That doesn’t count his endorsement money.

If he would have left the course in the middle of the tournament, he wasn’t going to have to eat Top Ramen for the rest of the month.

I was making about $25,000 a year at the time.

Second, Scheffler isn’t part of a team. He plays an individual sport. While modern society has now somehow deemed it socially acceptable for professional athletes to take a paternity leave — even during a pennant race — the quarterback of a football team isn’t going to miss a playoff game because his wife goes into labor.

Not if he wants to keep being the quarterback.

That is because he is a part of a team. He owes it to his teammates, the organization that pays him handsomely and the fanbase that buys his jersey to be on the field.

Plus, there’s really not a lot the father does in the delivery room. If there are complications, he is the first one getting booted into the hallway.

The doctor isn’t saying, “Uh oh, this one is breech. We’re going to have to do an emergency C-section. Dad, scrub up and grab a scalpel.”

All I did in that room for three deliveries is get yelled at.

As if trying to listen to Rex Grossman come off the bench and lead the Bears to a come-from-behind victory over the Raiders in Oakland in 2007 (while my son was born) is such a bad thing.

But I was there during the births of all three children, and I got to be the first one to hold each of those babies — as if that is fair.

In the old days, the dads would hang out in the waiting room while the mom delivered the baby. That is, if he wasn’t at the bar handing out cigars.

Did I mention my wife is very understanding? At least 99 percent of the time I end up in the dog house, it is because of my initial reaction to things.

It is like I am Michael Scott on the office. He always does better with his second chance to answer the phone. If only I had a Pam Beesly to filter my marital conversations.

This time, though, Kim got it. She knew the Tech-Carroll game was a big one, and she knew that I couldn’t help myself when I get caught up in big football games.

She is, after all, the girl I knew I wanted to marry the second I saw her buying a “Yankees suck” T-shirt outside a Red Sox-Mariners game in Seattle 16 months earlier.

She has been there with me through good times and through hard times. She is funny, smart and beautiful, and she always has my back. She is the best teammate in the world. She gave me three children who turned out to be pretty incredible.

She is why I wouldn’t even consider trading places with any man. Not even Scottie Scheffler.

His pocketbook and short game, though, are another story.

— Bill Foley, who is now craving Top Ramen, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.