ON THE ROAD (FIRST INSTALLMENT)
11/25/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2004
Welcome to on the road!
During the course of the season, I will try and paint a written picture for you and we defend the Southland Conference regular season title from last year. You will learn a little bit about traveling with a men's basketball team, the experiences on the road and hopefully a little more about each player.
Hope you enjoy.
Day 1 A five-day road trip with a party of 20 or so does not just fall into place. The athletic department's travel coordinator, Mrs. Delores, helps in making each road trip as smooth as possible. She does a tremendous job in making sure the trips go off without any problems.
After a stint at UT-San Antonio before arriving at UTA last year, I have almost forgotten the art of packing for a cold-weather road trip. While I looked for ski gloves, caps and scarfs the night before, I realize most of these players have never seen snow in their lives. Most of the athletes are from the Houston area and the only snow they have seen has been on DVD or television.
We arrive at DFW. Like most teams, once players check in their bags, they made a sprint for the food court. You can count on athletes to be constantly hungry and, if there is a doubt where to eat at, they will always fall back on ol' reliable - McDonalds.
Once we board the plane we wait for 90 minutes on the runway due to the poor weather conditions and the Thanksgiving holiday. Amazing to see flocks of geese look like specks in the sky below us and not above. Scheduled to be in El Paso by 12:30, we arrive at 2 p.m.
We see our first snow. A fine snow that melted before it hit the ground. Most of the athletes thought it was mist.
Coach runs the team through a spirited two-hour practice. It is 10 p.m. in Texas and we go to Chili's for dinner. Each player orders what they want and they pay for it with their daily meal allowance. Our waitress, Marci, takes good care of the guys and comments on how great they were during dinner.
Back to the room for a little SportsCenter and HBO and lights out by midnight.
Day 2 The sun is out today, but there is gloom over Las Cruces. As we drive up to the Pan Am Center for shoot around, the word is out they are holding a press conference announcing the firing of head football coach Tony Samuel.
Samuel had been here eight years, developed a loyal following, but a 5-6 record this season wasn't enough.
Anytime a coach is fired or their contract not renewed, the entire coaching fraternity feels their pain. Typically when the head coach is fired their entire staff is also dismissed and left to either be retained by the new coach, or begin burning the phone lines looking for their next job.
Coach McCarter was quiet after the news spread down to the basketball court. He stared into the stands while players warmed up their shooting touch. He knows his profession is a tough trade off. Put your job in the hands of a group of 19-20 year old kids in exchange to do one thing you love - basketball.
Coach told the kids to make this a real bad day for New Mexico State. He said he has a feeling that his "Lil' Motor Scooters" can sneak up on them. NMSU made it to the finals of a tournament in Fairbanks, Alaska last weekend but arrive back home at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning after three games in three days. The Aggies are ripe for the taking tonight.
Got a call from the Wyoming SID and he chuckled when I told him it was cold this morning with temperatures in the 20s. It is going to be a white Thanksgiving for the Lil' Mavs.
(UTA Assistant A.D. for Marketing/Sports Information, Bill Petitt, begins a periodic series of reports from the road with the UTA men's basketball team.)
