Nobody said life on the road was easy and it certainly isn't. We have worked endlessly to get to El Paso, Texas, for the Sierra Providence Sun Classic Tournament, but as of 10 p.m. Tuesday it appears we will be only able to play one game on Thursday night...that is, if we can just get 11 players and four coaches to El Paso by Thursday night. You can't believe how many flights we have had canceled already.
It all started with the players returning from a brief holiday break for a practice on Christmas Eve. We did not have a good practice Christmas Eve and our practice on Christmas day was also not good. You always want to have good practices but it is somewhat understandable when the players leave family and friends to return to a deserted campus and two tough practice sessions.
After our practice on Christmas morning we boarded the bus for the start of our trip. We stopped at one of the few local restaurants that was open Christmas day and then bused on to St. Louis so we would be ready for an early morning flight to El Paso and the Sun Classic Tournament.
We had a good dinner in St. Louis Christmas night, but when we returned to our hotel we learned that our flight on Tuesday morning had been canceled because of bad weather in Dallas.
Tom Schuberth, one of my assistant coaches, and sports information director Ron Hines spent hours on the telephone Christmas night trying to reschedule our flight. Because of the bad weather in Dallas and the rush of normal heavy air travel after Christmas, it was impossible to get flights on Tuesday.
This meant that we would have to fly into El Paso the day of the game and you never want to have a long day of travel and then have to play a basketball game. We didn't like that idea, but we really had no options. We were able to split into two groups, with early morning departures on Wednesday. One group would fly to Dallas and then on to El Paso while the second group would fly to Chicago and then on to El Paso.
We needed a good practice on Tuesday and we were able to practice at Washington University. We had a good practice, but learned after practice that our flight through Dallas on Wednesday had been canceled. At that point it looked like we simply weren't going to be able to get to El Paso for the tournament. Coach Schuberth had numerous telephone conversations with all the airlines that service El Paso and with the Sun Classic Committee, but we simply couldn't get enough seats to get our team to El Paso.
As we rode the bus back to our hotel in St. Louis it looked like it simply wasn't going to happen. When we got to our hotel my wife, Barbara, said that the Sun Bowl Committee representative had called and said they had seven seats on an airplane that was headed to Las Vegas and we had a connecting flight into El Paso.
It was 4:30 p.m. when we got our five starters plus Drew DeMond together and headed to the airport to catch the 5:45 flight. Once at the airport we learned we were on stand-by and we did not get on the flight.
We now have seven reservations on a 6:40 a.m. flight to Chicago today. They will fly from Chicago to El Paso and should arrive at about noon today. The rest of the team will join us on Thursday on a flight through Las Vegas.
We will have a skeleton crew, but if more flights haven't been canceled we will have a team on the floor Thursday night to play Jackson State or Texas-El Paso. These are difficult circumstances, but hopefully we can get a win on Thursday night. At least we will get in a game and that is important that we play this game before resuming Ohio Valley Conference play at Tennessee State on Jan. 4.
I hate the fact that the players will miss out on the festivities the Sun Bowl had scheduled for us. The other teams enjoyed a lunch at the Outback Steak House and trip to the Comedy Club along with the Wisconsin football team. As the other teams enjoyed the festivities, we were fighting the airline struggles.
The only thing that will make the whole episode bearable is a win on Thursday night. We have a travel-weary team, but we'll give it our best shot.
Gary Garner is the head basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University
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