It Takes A Village, Or At Least A Small Army

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Drew Pittman has a Steve Jobs quote constantly running through his mind. The co-founder of Apple once said, "Greatness is communicated through everything that we do."

"That's kind of how we feel about travel. It's the details," said Pittman, Baylor's Associate AD for Event Management and Facilities and part of the coordination team for football travel trips. "It's making sure the rental car is parked where I told you it was parked when you go outside, so there's no surprises."

For Samantha Diamond, associate director of football administration, the goal is that "literally nobody has to ask or want for anything," right down to having a specific soda of choice out on the hotel coffee station at all times. "My ultimate goal is nobody having to think about anything."

David Wetzel, now Associate AD for Football Relations, played at Baylor in a simpler (1987-91) time when then-director of football operations Jerry Pickle and longtime trainer Mike Sims handled all the travel logistics for the football team.

Coming from the small town of Goldthwaite, Texas, Wetzel thought that actually getting a travel itinerary "was phenomenal."

"I still have a couple of those," he said. "I used some of those ideas as I became a (high school) head coach and we did our own travel stuff. Now, you have more staff that's involved in it, and we have higher-end technology to help with it. But, it's the same thing. It's moving a massive amount of people and making sure everybody's taken care of."

From a two-man operation back in the 1980s and '90s, it now takes a small army of people to coordinate moving 70 football players, another 100-plus people in the travel party and all the equipment needed for trips to places like Morgantown, W. Va., and Ames, Iowa.

"I try not to let the whole trip stress me out," Wetzel said. "I want it to go well, but invariably everything is not always going to be perfect. So, I just try to remain calm."

New to the role this season, Wetzel has also had the benefit of learning the ropes from Sean Padden, the Associate AD for Football Operations. Padden handled the travel details for head coach Matt Rhule for four years at Temple and last season at Baylor.

Better than anyone, Padden knows, "Every protocol we have in place was built from a mistake we learned and got corrected and move forward on. Why do we do this? Because one time this happened."

Padden went with Wetzel last spring to scout out possible hotels for the road trips to San Antonio, Austin, Arlington, Norman, Okla., Morgantown and Ames. The rooms are booked months in advance.

"It's basically looking at the options," Wetzel said. "You look at the distance from the airport you fly into to the hotel and then the hotel to the stadium. You look at the logistics of the stadium. And basically, you're looking at, can they handle us? What I've learned is there are some that are outstanding at handling a football team and some are not.

"You've got to go to a place that can handle us, hotel room-wise, but also a place that can handle us meal-wise, that has enough catering staff to do that; and that can handle us having meeting rooms to put an offense and a defense in and then if we need to have a walk-through, to have enough room to do all those things."

For this week's trip to play Iowa State, the team will actually stay at a hotel in Ankeny, Iowa, midway between the Des Moines airport and Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.

"And we'll take up the whole hotel, every room they have," Wetzel said. "They've had teams, they've had Baylor before, so you deal with people like that, that you know that that's the best game in town. The biggest deal is that our players are taken care of and that the food service is where it ought to be and that they're there to take care of our program. You can tell when they're on their game and when they're not."

Pittman, who coordinates all the air and ground transportation, said the "most complicated" piece of the travel is the charter flights, because "charter availability across the country keeps going down."

"The NBA basically set up their own airline a few years ago, and I think all but three or four of the NBA teams have opted into this deal where they have chartered aircraft that they've leased for 10 years," he said. "We're lucky that we have great partners in United. I think this is our eighth year with United. We work through that process in the January/February time frame . . . working with United and the folks up in Chicago to get everything solidified."

Baylor has also had the same crew for eight years, with Marsha McCray as the in-flight coordinator and Alan Stein as ground coordinator.

"They're great partners for us to have on the airline side of things," Pittman said, "because they have always been super as far as timeliness and getting us where we need to go, and then working through challenges with us, too."

Stein comes to Waco in the summer to weigh all the larger equipment that goes on the plane, "because when you're flying out ofClarksburg (W. Va.), our load of people on the airplane is significantly heavier than an average commercial flight because we've got 70 college football players," Pittman said.

Later in the spring, around April or May, Pittman starts lining up all the ground transportation with buses, police escorts for the trips to and from the airport and to the stadium on the day of the game, along with a small fleet of rental cars for staff.

"Needs change from one place to another," he said. "If the hotel is close enough to the stadium, I'll load up the trainers in my rental car Saturday morning and take them to the stadium, and then come back to the hotel. If it's farther away, I have to get them a rental car so they can drive themselves over to the stadium, because they all go over early and set up, usually four or five hours before the team gets there."

About two weeks out, Diamond will get with a hotel rep and go over all the specific needs with meals and room set-ups and assigning all the rooms, "because our orders are specific," she said.

"Each room needs this and each room kind of has its own set-up. I'll talk to the chef, I'll talk to kind of the day-of coordinator, and then David and I will work together on our side with the travel party and the rooming list."

Other than transporting the football players and coaching staff, one of the most important elements of the travel trip is getting the equipment truck there on time. For the Thursday night game in West Virginia on Oct. 25, truck driver Ben Duhoney had to leave that Monday to get there the day before the game, and then didn't make it back to Waco until late Friday night.

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"We have a master check list that we go off of, that not only has what we need on there, but it has what everybody else has told us they need – the radio equipment, Dave (Snyder) and what the trainers need, strength staff, operations staff," said Chris Scheideman, director of equipment services. "That way, not only can we check ourselves but we can check everybody else, because in the end it's on us with the truck. That's our responsibility to get everything there and to make sure we have it loaded up before we leave."

Knock on wood, Scheideman says he's never had any real issues. "But, even when you've been doing it for so long, you still have to use a check list, because the one time you don't use it, you'll be like, 'Oh man, that's not good.'''

TRAVEL TRIP TIMELINE
(For a Saturday afternoon game)

Thursday: Following the Wednesday practice, the equipment staff gets all the helmets cleaned up and packed and shoulder pads packed, "so Thursday is when we start loading up the truck." Depending on the distance, the equipment truck leaves Thursday night so that it can be at the destination by the next morning. On the longer trips, like West Virginia, associate director of equipment services Harrison Hanna will leave Thursday night to meet the truck at the hotel Friday morning. Diamond and Pittman also leave Thursday, making sure everything is ready at the hotel and airport for when the team arrives the next day.

8 a.m. Friday: Harrison and a handful of student trainers will meet the truck at the hotel to unload all the stuff that will stay at the hotel, "like the water jugs, some of the video equipment, Ping Pong tables, and things of that nature," Scheideman said.

9 a.m. Friday: The equipment staff will go the stadium to unload and start setting up the locker room, "so the locker room is pretty much 100 percent set up the day before," Scheideman said.

10 a.m. Friday: Staff and guests arrive at the Waco airport for a noon departure. The team buses from the Baylor campus and goes directly to the plane. "We're fortunate that we can do TSA (security) for the players outside here and do TSA at the airport for everybody else," Diamond said. Through a TeamWorks data system, Wetzel has assigned seats on the plane to as many as 190 travelers, and worked with Diamond on hotel rooms and bus assignments. "You might have a few last-minute changes, but I would say 90 percent of the trip is done before the advance group leaves."

Noon Friday: Pre-stocked with lunch and loads of snacks, the chartered plane departs Waco. "You've been on there with us," Samantha said. "You've got chips, candy bars, fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, warm cookies and milk. Anything and everything you can imagine. You can't eat for three days after." Drew said he once flew "Transatlantic in business class, and we didn't get as much food as you do on the team plane."

1:30 p.m. Friday: Five buses and the police escorts are waiting when the team plane lands, transporting the team, staff and guests to the hotel.

3 p.m. Friday: After a quick stretch, the players are in their rooms by 3, so they can get off their feet and maybe squeeze in a short nap before dinner.

6 p.m. Friday: Yes, another meal. It takes a lot to feed 300-pound linemen. "The pasta bar is a big hit," Diamond said. "Everything is the same, it's all ordered, very detailed. We want these toppings as options and grilled chicken, steak; the buffet is always the same. Each hotel will obviously put their own spin on what kind of glazed carrots they make, but other than that, they know what they're having for dinner Friday night."

7:30 p.m. Friday: Team meetings, followed by the "best snack in college football," Diamond said. "We do burgers, fries, quesadillas, ice cream bar. I would go as far to say as we probably have the best snack in college football the night before the game."

10:30 p.m. Friday: Curfew. Enough said.

8 a.m. Saturday: Wake up, followed by a continental breakfast with muffins, Pop Tarts, fruit, granola and oatmeal. "We do that early morning for the guys that do get up. Typically, we wrap that up at 9:30 or so. And then we do a little wake-up deal just to get them going." There will be a chapel service before the pregame meal, which will happen closer to 10:30.

9 a.m. Saturday: The equipment staff is on site at the stadium, putting the finishing touches on setting up the locker room and making sure they have everything they need. "Once the locker room is set up, it's kind of time for me to take a breath," Scheideman said. "In my life, when I was doing what Harrison is doing now as an assistant, definitely, once the locker room was set up, you felt better. Now, it's almost more stressful, because I don't get to go to the locker room, pregame. So, when I show up, on Saturday is kind of when I breathe now. But, that's it's so important to have people like Harrison, because I totally trust him. I know that everything is going to be done above and beyond."

11:30 a.m. Saturday: Buses roll out from the hotel, headed to the stadium. Players and coaches are dressed in their business suits, because this is a business trip.

2:30 p.m. Saturday: Game time. Pittman and a handful of other staffers that he recruits will leave to return the rental cars back to the airport. "For me, my first sigh of relief is when the truck leaves, because it's packed, we're good to go," Scheideman said. "The second sigh of relief is once pregame is over, because that means that everything you thought you needed, you have, for the most part. We're good to go, there's nothing blindsiding us."

4:30 p.m. Saturday: At around halftime, Drew and United's Alan Stein go back to the hotel and make sure everything is prepared and ready to go. "The whole time, I've been tracking the plane from wherever it's ferried," he said. "People have this misconception about charter travel that the plane flies you somewhere and then just sits there for however long. United almost always puts either that exact same plane back in service, or at least ferries that plane back to a United hub to get serviced. So, when we were in West Virginia, that plane flew back to Dulles in Washington, D.C., and got serviced and got re-catered and then flew back to Clarksburg."

7 p.m. Saturday: Following the game, the buses depart the stadium headed back to the airport for the flight home. But, "postgame is kind of when our day is just starting," Scheideman said. The equipment staff and student managers take great pride in picking up the visiting locker room and making sure they leave it in pristine order. "We make sure we check all the lockers and nobody left anything, packing up all the helmets and everything, picking up trash and then getting the truck loaded back up for the ride home."

9 p.m. Saturday: Estimated departure time from the airport. Once again, the plane is pre-stocked with food and enough snacks to feed a large army.

10:30 p.m. Saturday: Arrive in Waco, hopefully after a win, with fans greeting us at the airport. The buses are waiting to take the team back to campus. "I usually lift myself up into the plane when we land to make sure all the bags are out," Pittman said, "just because we have had that happen before. The conveyor belt that brings the bags off the plane, it had a bag fall between it and where it comes down. So now, after they take the bags and they go park it, I go over and look to make sure there's nothing stuck behind it. And then after you get home, you just kind of collapse." Samantha follows the team buses back to campus, to make sure all the players have their bags and car keys before heading home herself. Pittman stays at the airport until the last person has left, "so I usually walk out to this lonely car that's all by itself in the parking lot. But, that's a great feeling when all the cars are gone when you walk out, actually."

Sunday: The night's not over for Scheideman and the equipment managers that travel back with the team. They still have to launder all the pants and jerseys when they get back to the Simpson building, because "if you don't take care of the jerseys and pants immediately, you run the risk of stains holding on. Everything else will go back on the truck and we'll unload the truck late Sunday morning, early afternoon," after Duhoney drives the truck back to Waco.

And then, you start all over. As Rhule says, "What's next."

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It Takes A Village, Or At Least A Small Army

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