game-time decision

English

Noun

game-time decision (plural game-time decisions)

1. (sports) A decision about the conduct of a sporting event, usually one made by the coach regarding which players will start or will play, or which strategy will be employed, which is put off until the start of the game itself.
   • 1976, Engel Machol, Shaul P. Ladany, Management Science in Sports, p. 57:

     A topographical presentation of these contours was used as a game-time decision aid by the UCLA 1972-73 Football Coaching Staff.

2. By extension, any decision that is put off until a point where it can no longer be delayed.
   • 2010, Chris Howard, Money Makers: Inside the New World of Finance and Business, page 36:

     I ended up staying out partying until 4 AM at which time I had an important game time decision: : go back to my apartment in Hoboken [New Jersey] to catch an hour of sleep or go straight to the office.

   • 2009, Paula Peters, Working Mom's Survival Guide, page 116:

     But when the day finally comes that you spend a sleepless night with a crying baby who has a 103-degree fever, you'll still need to make a game-time decision. Who stays home from work?

   • 2007, Eric Dubin, The Star Chamber: How Celebrities Go Free and Their Lawyers Become, page 179:

     There was also true courtroom suspense — a Perry Mason moment that could have cost me the whole trial. I made a game-time decision to ask Earle Caldwell's girlfriend a question nobody had ever asked her before: Did she believe that Caldwell and Blake were responsible for Bonny's murder?

   • 2004, Phillip Allen, Play Money, page 17:

     Fortunately I made a game-time decision to take off my Hilfiger jeans and put on some khakis right before I left.