Dec. 1, 2006

Springfield, Mo. - 5:33 A.M. After 11 straight hours of driving, Bob Schroeder was given a round of applause by the Santa Clara men's basketball team. Being a part of the Jesuit community, I'm reluctant to call Bob our savior. Let's just say we have a pretty high opinion of Bob. He had just traversed through the snow to Kansas City from Springfield and back again. Following a journey that started 23 hours earlier in the South Bay, the Broncos arrived in Springfield, Missouri for their game later that day against Alabama State in the Price Cutter Classic.

At 5:33 A.M. on Nov. 30, I was speeding on northbound 880 in my wife's RAV 4. As I've learned over the years, DDT (Dick Davey Time) means arriving 15 minutes before the time on the official itinerary. Assistant Lloyd Pierce told me to be ready at 5:45 and I thought that really meant 5:30. I was stressed out. Only later that night when I checked my e-mail did I learn that the itinerary read "6 A.M. depart for airport". Getting to the Leavey Center parking lot at 5:41 was fine. With no one there yet, I could exhale.

Leaving San Jose about 7:30 it seemed like a normal road trip: We got up unbelievably early with the coaches and Art Santo Domingo sifting through the morning papers, looking at last night's scores. The women's team had a rough night at Stanford and 2 kids quit at Pepperdine.

The fun started in Denver.

We had roughly an hour before changing planes for Springfield. Time to get a quick bite to eat and catch up with the traveling party before catching a 12:20 P.M. flight. A chef salad and an orange juice for only $11.25? That sounds more than fair. After I quickly inhaled a salad that put a dent in my 401K, word came that our flight to was cancelled. Coach Pierce was dispatched to find out what our options were.

Sam Scuilli looked up the distances from airports "somewhat" near Springfield. St. Louis was 217 miles away. Tulsa is 180 miles and a long bus ride in the snow. Even flying to Memphis was an option. But the team would have to bus west into the storm. Plus, it might not be faster than simply flying to Springfield on Friday morning. Time to get some more food while things get sorted out. Another 10 bucks at one o'clock for a sandwich, chips and bottled water. My wife has just told me to be safe. As if I can do anything other than eventually put on a seat belt and burn through my per diem.

Tulsa it is. We've been told that we're probably going to catch and 8:13 to Tulsa and then bus our way to Springfield, setting us up for a arrival around 2:00 A.M. The Springfield flight the next morning was completely full and Coach Davey didn't like the idea of getting into town about 2 in the afternoon for a game 5 hours later. It was about 3:00 P.M and I'm starting to get hungry again.

Coach Seandel stirred up memories of a trip we took to Purdue for a game on December 18, 2000. We ended up in Lafayette about a day and half after leaving the South Bay with our drained team having nothing left by the time the game started. This couldn't be that bad. Could it?

Coach Pierce continued to call around to check our options. The plan has changed. We would leave the airport, get a hotel and try again the next morning since the forecast for Friday was "clear skies". We could get a good night's sleep and not worry about a flight cancellation the next day. It wasn't ideal but seemed like a good idea. Plus, I could get in a workout to burn off some of the airport food that would cost me $35 before the end of the day. Mitch Henke just walked up to our group and I told him the plan. He nodded and that was it. An airport employee had just spoken to Coach Davey about our baggage. Denver for the night!

Pierce continued to make calls. Another scenario began to unfold for us. There was a flight to Kansas City at 6:48. It was about 11 hours since we were leaving Leavey. One more food run to Quiznos and it looks like we're going to finally get out of Denver.

Since I have a cousin in the magazine business, I'm lucky enough to get any subscription I want. If I go a week without reading those periodicals, they can stack up pretty quickly. 14 magazines accompanied me on this trip. The plan was to get through all of them over the weekend. They were tossed aside before leaving Denver. K-Fed is going broke, the big man is back in college basketball and I learned a new leg workout to develop my quads. It dawned on me that I have too much time on my hands.

Naturally, the plane was a few minutes late and we finally were in the air a little after 7:00. With the time change, we arrived in Kansas City at 9:55. It's been draining but we can see the finish line. Coach Davey is surprisingly upbeat. Let's get our bags, hop on the bus and take about 3 ½ hours to get to Springfield. By accounting for the weather, we'll take about four hours by bus and pass out before three.

Of course, something else would go wrong. Our bags didn't make the flight to Kansas City and the bus wasn't there waiting for us. A row of five players sat along a wall with laptops, getting caught up with e-mail, telling friends and family, "You're not gonna believe this but...." Our bags were scheduled to arrive at midnight but who could we believe by now? The bus arrived at 11:15 and we would have the bags sent to the hotel. Mike Cembellin told me that I would start to feel greasy. That was several hours ago.

Once we all stumbled our way onto the bus, Coach Davey told us we would stop for food before driving the rest of the way to Springfield. The estimate has changed to a 6-hour drive. My wife said to be safe again.

Bob took us to a Denny's about 11:45. Across the street is a Waffle House with about 2/3 of the team opting to go there while Brody, O.K. Mitch and Josh stayed with "the adults". After paying the bill, we were on the road about 12:30. Coach Pierce put in a Seinfeld DVD. Seandel dozed off almost immediately while I lasted maybe 2 episodes. What could Costanza do to satisfy Steinbrenner's calzone fetish?

Somewhere along the drive I was awakened by the jolt of a swerving bus. There were visions of Richie Valens and the Big Bopper with the fish-tailing vehicle nearly going off the road. The day the music died would not be linked to the day the play-by-play died. Bob got us back on track as we saw at least 10 vehicles completely buried by snow. After everything we had been through, it just couldn't be a smooth ride to finish off this leg of the trip. Amazing race meets Survivor. I think I'm getting hungry again.

As we pull into the hotel, a worker is blowing snow off the sidewalk and we're told to be careful getting off the bus. At 5:42, we're given our room keys while SID Jed Mettee and I ask for tooth paste. Davey says his toothpaste will be his pillow. It's a bad visual but I understand where he's coming from. Once entering room 511, I ripped open the packet of paste and went at it. Never before had I linked tooth brushing to the sensation of a deep tissue massage but I actually moaned. The rest of me feels greasy but that will have to wait until I wake up. It's 7:10 in Springfield.

Good morning and good night. My pillow calls.