So I was sitting there last Sunday, one remote click away from the Duke – North Carolina game, putting off homework and a Sunday afternoon nap, while one thought bounced through my mind: Nothing will stop me from watching this game.

Nothing except a Variety Club telethon.

No way. There is no way I’m missing `Heels – `Devils for a children’s charity telethon, I thought.

Sure enough, phones kept ringing, local celebrities kept saying, “We thank you so much for your generosity.”

When the telethon finally ended, so too had the game. “How stupid,” I said to anyone who was within earshot.

I was seething. I was pissed. I was wrong.

The Variety Club is an international organization that provides more than $1 billion worth of funding for sick children, malnourished children and disabled children.

In Iowa alone, more than 200 children’s organizations benefit from Variety Club funding, said Sheri McMichael, executive director of Variety Club of Iowa.

“Oh,” I said. “Still…”

Last weekend’s telethon alone raised $4.3 million, said Randy Shelton, operating manager of WOI-TV 5, the ABC affiliate that aired the event.

And Shelton said there was nothing he could do about the game playing second fiddle in Central Iowa to the Variety Club.

“The telethon was scheduled 12 months in advance,” he said.

He added that WOI tried to cut a deal with AT&T Cable, but one of the many problems was a lack of time available to do so.

McMichael said that last year more organizations had requested money than funding available, which makes the telethon all the more important because “it is our biggest event of the year,” McMichael said.

Now I’m thinking, I’m an idiot.

This game seems so inconsequential.

If you still think otherwise, keep reading.

At Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, Vicki Agnitsch is thankful.

Before the Variety Club provided funding, she and others in the intensive care nursery had to “jimmy-rig adult equipment” so it would not kill the premature babies that needed these ventilators and blood pressure cuffs and transport incubators to keep them alive for another day.

Now things are simpler for Agnitsch, team leader in the Variety Club intensive care nursery at Blank Children’s Hospital.

But, more expensive.

A baby that weighs somewhere around two pounds needs “hundreds of breaths a minute,” Agnitsch said.

The oscillator ventilator, which provides a premature baby with tiny puffs of air, costs $25,000.

The Variety Club picked up the tab, Agnitsch said.

Every baby also needs a remotely small IV pump, she said. They cost $5,000 per individual IV.

As of yesterday afternoon, 24 of them were in use, Agnitsch said.

A couple blocks north of downtown Ames, a shelter care center, the Rosedale Shelter, sits across the street from Fareway.

Lights placed in the cold ground shoot upward and highlight the three-story house.

Rosedale is a place where kids come mostly as a result of their own actions, said Scott Thraem, a resident counselor.

They are either sent to Rosedale as a recommendation from the Department of Human Services or from juvenile court.

The 10 17-year-olds normally stay at Rosedale for two to three weeks on average, Thraem said.

In that time, they are introduced to a structured environment, learn to become a positive role model and learn social skills.

“It makes you feel really good when you hear from a kid that has improved,” Thraem said.

In the last 10 years, Rosedale has received about $50,000 a year on average from the Variety Club, said George Belitsos, executive director of the shelter.

Next year, I won’t complain about missing a basketball game.

I’ll call in.

Paul Kix is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard.