The Triangle

Issue date: 1/23/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Aaron Walizer

Life as a college athlete on the road is not all it's cracked up to be.

You have to endure six-hour bus rides, keep yourself occupied in your hotel room during all the downtime before the game and catch up on your studies while still trying to keep focused on the task at hand: trying to steal a victory away from home in a hostile environment.

Yes, life as a college athlete can be quite difficult at times - a true test.

But if you're lucky enough, there are times when you're on the road where you feel like you've made it; you feel like you're a big timer; you feel like you're a pro.

That's what I felt like as I boarded an ExpressJet charter plane with the men's basketball team as it headed down south to the Tar Heel state to face the UNC Wilmington Seahawks at the Trask Coliseum.

You see, thanks to John Daskalakis, better known as "D" in "DAC," Dr. Eric Zillmer and Bruiser Flint I had the opportunity to get an All-Access pass to see just what it's like to be a college athlete on a roadtrip.

Here's an approximate day-by-day look inside my trip:

Friday:

11:00 a.m.: Radio color analyst Rob Brooks is the last person to get on the team bus; it's time to hit the road and go to the airport.

11:30 a.m.: Upon arriving at our private terminal, the search for our gate begins. An uncertain Coordinator of Basketball Operations/Travel Winston Smith gets barked at by Flint while trying to figure out what gate we need to be at. We finally find our gate, which opens and our bus pulls right up our charter plane.

11:45 a.m.: We begin boarding.

12:00 p.m.: Chris Mohl hands out chocolate chip cookies his mom baked for the entire team. They are delicious. However, Sports Information Director Mike Tuberosa gets some chocolate on his khakis. What a disaster. Fortunately, Associate Athletic Director Laura White teaches "Tubes" how to dab properly and thanks to a Shout towel given to him by the flight attendant, he successfully removes the stain.

12:30 p.m.: Our plane takes off for Wilmington.

12:55 p.m.: Tramayne Hawthorne is playing pool on his iPod Touch. He makes a nice shot, sinking the 7-ball into the corner pocket.

1:00 p.m.: Dr. Zillmer gets on the flight attendant speaker and thanks everyone, including the donors who were invited, for coming.

1:35 p.m.: Our plane lands at Wilmington International Airport. The flight was just over an hour long. Not bad. We board the bus and head over to the team hotel, a Marriott in the middle of nowhere.

Continued...

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