Care to join the sports world? Prepare to sacrifice plenty of prime time.

For yourself and with your better half.

There’s no better day to acknowledge that than on Valentine’s Day.

Whether you work as a coach, an official, athletic director or for a newspaper, a career in sports means working plenty of weekends, evenings, sometimes even holidays.

While most of the public uses sporting events for recreational or entertainment time, it’s work time for those of us in the business.

That’s why the spouses of people like us are special people, indeed.

High school basketball officials and observers of those officials are working games almost nightly through the winter. Many of those same folks officiate football in the fall and/or umpire baseball in the spring and summer.

Now retired Slippery Rock University football coach George Mihalik recently said his wife “did it all so he could enjoy a game.”

Laura Mihalik worked full-time herself, did the outside chores, the inside chores, paid the bills, etc.

Coaching any sport, college or high school, is pretty much hours of extra work around the calendar anymore.

One would think the divorce rate for people in the sports business is through the roof. But it isn’t.

A study done on occupations and corresponding divorce rates a few years ago listed the divorce rate of coaches and officials at only 14.5 percent.

By comparison, the divorce rate for some other occupations are as high as 43 and 38 percent.

My guess is two things hold marriages of people involved in the sports business together. One is the quality of people who serve time as coaches and game officials.

The majority of those people are top-notch individuals. Most of them coach and/or officiate more than one sport.

Athletic directors work absolutely crazy hours. After putting in a full day at school, they are off to some sporting event involving their program pretty much nightly. But I have yet to meet an athletic director who is not a high-integrity, well-rounded person.

The other thing is effort put into spending quality time together — because that allotted time becomes so precious.

When you write about sports for a living, there is no off-season. You’re on the phone quite a bit, miss a lot of meals, weddings, birthday parties and other social functions.

Yet, my wife Darlene and I will be married for 31 years come May. She’s learned how to put a completed meal on the table in a 30-minute window I sometimes have to eat it.

We bowl in a league just to guarantee ourselves one night out socially as a couple. We’ll have a nice meal out when time and finances permit — to give her a break.

How do sports marriages stand the test of time? That answer lies with the person in the relationship not working in sports.

To all of them: Happy Valentine’s Day. You deserve it.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle