How to be a Steeldog: Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven: Dealing with Life on the Road

Lucky you, you’re going on an all expenses paid trip to….Albany, Ga. I hope you’re not afraid of giant cockroaches.

Travel is part of your job as well. In my day, I have been to such desirable vacation sports as Albany, Macon and Columbus, Ga., Huntsville and Mobile, Ala., Albany, N.Y., Charleston, S.C., Little Rock, Ark., Memphis, Tenn., Louisville, Ky., Estero, Fla., Tulsa, Okla., and San Diego, Calif. The San Diego trip was well worth the money it ended up costing me.

Honestly, traveling with the guys can be fun and frustrating all in the same package. There is a layer of excitement, a layer of boredom, a layer of exhaustion, and a layer of “I can’t sit on this bus anymore or I’ll go crazy!” It’s a regular crazy quilt of diesel fumes and lukewarm Powerade.

What to bring

1. At least one pillow – No matter how long the trip, at least one pillow is
required for any comfort whatsoever.
2. Music – iPods, CDs, what have you. Bring it. If you have a portable DVD
player, bring it and two changes of batteries. Please don’t forget
comfortable headphones, preferably those that cover your ears.
3. Ear plugs – They won’t work all that well (the TV’s will be turned up
really loud), but it’s better than nothing.
4. Snacks – Bring something to snack on, if you dig that kind of thing.
5. At least enough clothes for an emergency change – It would be nice to have a
back-up game night shirt in case of some unfortunate incident.
6. A wireless-capable laptop if you’ve got one – Most hotels have wireless access
now. It would be a nice touch to do a road blog.

Traveling protocol

Coach should be the travel czar. Inquisitions should go through him. Make sure that you have a list of rooming arrangements so that you know where every one is. If the team is doing a walkthrough the night before, get with the opposing team’s PR director days before so that you can pick up player/owner tickets and press passes at the practice facility during the walkthrough. This will make things easier on game night.

Try to hang around the hotel as much as possible the night before a game (more on this later). This is a precaution.

On gameday, when you get to the arena, be sure to check in with the opposing team’s PR director to see where visiting radio will be set up, etc. Make sure your coaches are squared away in what ever they may need. Basically, you are there as a gopher, a consultant and a guest. Your duties during away games will range from helping the trainer take water out to players during timeouts, to doing color on the radio, to helping break up a bench-clearing brawl. (all of which happened in my tenure)

Make sure that you call your TV stations with scores like you would during home games. They still need to know.

Lord of the Flies, Bus Trip Edition

When you’re traveling on the bus with the team, it’s like being in a mobile, mini society. The players sit in the back, trainers closer to the front, you in front of the trainers, and coaches in front of you. This seating chart was true on countless trips through two different head coaches.

Things get crazy at times. It’s loud: people yelling, music blaring, TV volume up as high as it can go. After the game: people drinking, getting louder. Bus drivers missing turns. No rest. No sleep. Rolling from midnight into the early morning.

That’s what to expect when you travel. I hope you’re a heavy sleeper.

“Going out vs. Staying in” or “Whether or not to go to Tijuana with Player X”

It is definitely best to stay in rather than go out, especially going out with the guys. Our players have had a tendency to find trouble when they go out. Your job is to avoid finding trouble. Hopefully, you can see my logic.

Case and point: We played in San Diego during the disastrous 2005 season. It is a beautiful city, with many fine eateries and drinking establishments…

It’s also very close to Tijuana.

My roommate was VP of Ticket Ops Shawn Williamson. He didn’t drink, didn’t carouse, didn’t get into trouble. You should be so lucky to have this roommate.

One of our assistant coaches had a rental car, and after we got our butts whooped in the Arena, we were given the car for a night on the town. Now, none of us has been to Mexico, and honestly, we were so close that we kinda wanted to go. But my flight leaves before the team’s, at about 5:30 in the A.M. A person in the know at the hotel told Shawn and I that although it is easy to cross the border into Mexico, it ain’t easy gettin’ out.

So we just decided to drive down to the border and say that we at least saw that.

Before we left, one of our more colorful linemen, "Player X", invited us to go with him and a bunch of the guys into the heart of Tijuana. Cheap booze, cheap food, cheap women. A tempting offer…traveling internationally with the guys would be a lot of fun. And think of all that cheap tequila! But it wasn’t long before the bolt of common sense split the night and zapped us both.

We drove down the border and back in plenty of time for my flight.

"Player X" and the guys fortunately made their flights back. However, they may have had to come up with some quick “mysterious rash alibis” to appease their girlfriends when they got back home. (I kid of course)