Wild day in the Valley of the Sun
Wednesday was one of the wildest days in my professional career. Sometimes people think sportswriters live glamorous lives, and I guess they are right. But sometimes that glamor comes at a cost of some grit and stress. Let me take you through Wednesday.
4:30 a.m.: Wakeup call to head to the airport. I got ready, then did one last weigh-in of my suitcase — 46 pounds, just under the 50-pound limit. I rarely check bags; I travel light. But eight days in the desert required not just a big big, but a honking big bag.
5:30 a.m.: Check bag at Will Rogers, hoping I could get some Southwest cooperation. We were headed to Phoenix via two tickets. OKC to Dallas, then Dallas to Phoenix through Austin. My hope? Southwest would check my bags all the way to Phoenix, although technically you’re supposed to get your bags in Dallas and re-check them on to Phoenix. The helpful woman at the Southwest counter helped me out. Southwest, as you know, is one of my all-time favorite companies. You can always count on friendly, helpful folks at Southwest.
6 a.m.: I make it through security and hook up with my comrades. Ebony Jackson was right in front of me through security. MKB (Mike Baldwin) was waiting for us at the gate. Chopper (John Helsley) joined us there soon, and Blueblood (Jake Trotter) was right behind him. Good start to the trip, getting everyone there in plenty of time for a 6:25 a.m. flight.
6:20 a.m.: I had checked us all in at 6:30 a.m. Christmas morning, so we got to board the plane relatively early; we had boarding passes 30-34. No. 30 got to board first, and that was MKB, and he got the best seat in the house, the seat with no seat in front of you on the exit row. Oh well; he’s 6-foot-5. He could use the leg room.
6:40 a.m.: As we took off, I sat with Ebony and discussed our multimedia plan for Arizona. We are doing a daily live show on the Internet, and I’ve got a part in a taped show Ebony is doing. It’s really quite interesting, all the various things we’re putting together for the web.
7:20 a.m.: We land in Dallas, and Chopper, MKB and Ebony head out, because in OKC they checked their bags curbside, and the skycaps don’t send the bags all the way to your final destination if you have two tickets. You can make 14 stops, and so long as it’s all on one ticket, you’ll be golden. But have two tickets, and they don’t budge. That meant me and Blueblood could remain inside security, but they had to exit and go through the baggage process again. They left us with most of their carry-ons, so between the two of us, we had four laptops and two video cameras. We were loaded down.
7:45 a.m.: Me and Blueblood had a little breakfast at Chili’s, which was remarkably empty, considering the Chili’s at Love Field almost always has a huge line, even in the morning. Over pancakes and French toast, me and Blueblood discussed OU football coverage in the desert and came up with a pretty good plan.
8:15 a.m.: Back at our gate, Blueblood gets a call from one of the guys. They are standing in a line described as 1,000-people long, waiting to check bags. No way they are going to make our 8:40 flight. Uh-oh. Missing your flight the day after Christmas is travel suicide. People all over the terminal were trying to reschedule flights. On our very flight, OSU’s Perrish Cox was trying to get on, because he had missed his flight to Phoenix. The Southwest employees were trying to be optimistic with people, but you could tell anyone left behind was headed for a long day in this or some other airport.
8:30 a.m.: We still have no airplane to take us to Austin, so for one of the few times in my life, I was cheering for a plane to be late. I kept thinking how me and Blueblood would get all the work done when we hit the ground Wednesday, and I kept thinking what a miserable day those guys were in for, unable to even work since we had their laptops.
8:35 a.m.: We have an airplane, and my heart sank.
8:40 a.m.: Ebony comes striding down the terminal, just as Flight 513 started loading. Chopper was right behind him, then MKB. They made it.
9:30 a.m.: After a delay in taking off, we fly to Austin, and I sit with Chopper, in the exit row, thanks be to God, and we discuss balancing OU, OSU, Indiana and West Virginia. The two of us will be covering all four teams, and we need to synchronize our schedules.
10 a.m.: We land in Austin but stay on the plane. Blueblood moves over to sit with us in the exit row, with MKB and Ebony on the other side. We’ve got total command of the passengers’ safety in case of crash. An actress from New York sits between MKB and Ebony; later we found out she told them she had been on One Life to Live, which is not good karma when you’re thinking about what to do in an airplane emergency situation. OSU center Andrew Lewis boards the plane. I wonder how much trouble Perrish Cox will be in.
11 a.m.: On the flight to Phoenix, we finish out our daily plan, then I start typing on my Page 2 items, a series of short bits and pieces. Anymore, I need the Internet for almost anything I write, so I’ve got a lot of holes. I also finish off reading the papers and nodding off and wondering why it’s not 11 p.m. already.
Noon Phoenix time: We land at Sky Harbor Airport and go find our bags at what seems to be the most crowded baggage claims in America. We chat with Lewis for awhile, and we notice Juaquin Iglesias’ bag keeps circling the carousel. We don’t know if he was on our plane or not — we didn’t see him — but Juaquin, if you’re missing your stuff, I’ll bet Southwest has it near Baggage Claim 2. We head out for the rental-car headquarters.
1:30 p.m.: After a long ordeal at E-Z Rental Car — no Southwest by any means — we get our two cars and head to our hotel, the Camelback Inn. Traffic in Phoenix is light, which is wonderful news. The Camelback is an old resort sitting next to Camelback Mountain; has a real 1940s look to it. We get checked in, but while some of the guys go grab some lunch, I get to work.
2 p.m.: I go to Fiesta Bowl media headquarters at the Camelback and gather up all the football brochures prepared for the bowl game and get my credentials prepared. It’s sort of a long process; they shoot photos on sight and put them on your press pass. I didn’t know there was a run on bogus press passes for the bowls Insight and Fiesta. They tried to give me the media gift — a pair of what I guess is designer sunglasses — but I don’t accept those media gifts. Seems a silly tradition to me. We shouldn’t be accepting gifts from the people we cover.
2:30 p.m.: Trying to finish my Page 2 stuff, I get a call from the office. Some are reporting that the University of San Francisco is ready to hire Eddie Sutton as its new basketball coach, on an interim basis. Our OSU basketball writer, Miss Saigon (Andrea Cohen), is in San Diego visiting her family. MKB, our OSU football writer (and long-time basketball writer), is in Arizona with me. But we mobilize and start calling anyone we know. My job? Call Sutton himself. So I do, leave a message and get back to work.
3:15 p.m.: Time to head back to the airport for the West Virginia press conference, scheduled for 4 p.m., to be followed by the 5:30 p.m. OU arrival press conference. As I’m leaving, MKB hands me half of his turkey club sandwich from lunch. The man is pure sportsman, let me tell you. I have it eaten before we leave the grounds of the Camelback. Traffic is not bad, but we’re not sure exactly where we’re going.
3:45 p.m.: Still driving around near the airport, my phone rings. It’s WWLS, ready for me to do my radio gig. The day was so crazy, I had forgotten about the Total Dominance Hour. So I did some radio with Al Eschbach and Craig Humphries, while driving and trying to find the terminal.
3:59 p.m.: A woman in a Phoenix city truck escorts us to the proper place, and we get out for a mad dash to a tent set up on the tarmac. Only to discover that West Virginia arrived early, conducted its press conference at 3:30 and got the heck on its way. But to the rescue came Stan Chase, channel 9’s long-time sports photographer. Stan let me listen to a recording of coach Bill Stewart’s press conference, standing outside, with a mariachi band occasionally playing in my ear. I was able to cobble together some comments that turned into a reasonably good story about West Virginia trying to overcome the distractions of losing Rich Rodriguez to Michigan. All thanks to Stan. The Oklahoman/channel 9 partnership, which has been going strong for seven years, officially ends at the end of the year, but for one bright day in the desert, it stood strong from my vantage point.
4:15 p.m.: Blueblood and Ebony wait for the OU press conference, but I’ve got work to do. So I jump on a Fiesta Bowl van and head back to the hotel. A West Virginia rides with me and he, too, missed Stewart’s press conference. I gave him every quote I had from Stan’s tape, and he in turn gave me some West Virginia ideas. So that was a fruitful trip.
5 p.m.: I’m cranking out my Page 2 stuff, all the time talking back to the office about Eddie Sutton, and we decide I won’t write about OSU football, I’ll write my column about Sutton. I finish up Page 2 and start working on the West Virginia story.
5:45 p.m.: I finish up the West Virginia story and get a call from Miss Saigon in San Diego about a Sutton teleconference scheduled for about 45 minutes later. I am supposed to be headed to OSU’s football press conference, and while I guess I could skip it, I wanted to be there, because I ripped Mike Gundy in print the other day, and I never want to hide. If I rip someone, I make it a point to show my face at the first opportunity.
6 p.m.: I’m waiting for MKB and Chopper to arrive to take a van over to OSU’s practice. The phone rings. It’s Eddie Sutton. He is returning phone calls and yes indeed, he’s going to San Francisco. We chat for 5-10 minutes, then he’s got to run, and frankly, so do I. The van is ready to take us to Tempe for the OSU practice.
6:30 p.m.: Turns out it’s a 30-minute drive to OSU’s practice, so I jump on the Sutton teleconference while riding in the back of the van. I have no idea how we did this job before cell phones. The teleconference is in poor quality, and frankly, the San Fran media seems more intrigued by what happened to ousted USF coach Jesse Evans than in how or why the Dons inticed Sutton to return to coaching.
6:45 p.m.: We find OSU’s practice, getting there just as the workout ends, and we go into some kind of meeting room at Corona del Sol High School. All the while, I’m still on the cell phone. Soon enough, Mike Gundy comes in, and I flip off my phone. I wasn’t getting much out of the teleconference anyway.
7 p.m.: We chat with Gundy, who seems to be in an OK mood, and then I talk with old pal Andrew Lewis. Turns out Perrish Cox made it fine to OSU’s first practice. MKB and Chopper do some interviews, too, and then we get back on the van. It’s about 7:30, with a 30-minute drive ahead of us, which means 8 p.m. arrival, and a one-hour time difference from Oklahoma. I do all that math and realize I’ll have 30 minutes to crank out my Sutton column. Oh well, beats 10 minutes.
8:30 p.m.: I send in my Sutton column about four minutes past deadline, which usually is acceptable.
8:35 p.m.: I take a deep breath for maybe the first time all day.
9 p.m.: We head out for a late dinner. We go to some pizza joint Chopper says is great, but they closed at 9 p.m. in Old Scottsdale, a trendy area that will lose its reputation if its establishments keep closing at 9 .m.
9:30 p.m.: We go into some Greek restaurant, and it turns out we’re traveling with Athenians. Blueblood’s mothher is a Greek woman whose maiden name I can neither pronounce or spell. MKB’s wife is the same. They talk Greek food and culture for like 30 minutes, tell us what to order and by dog it was a big-time meal. I had chicken Souvlaki, a big plate of good stuff, at a reasonable price, $12.95 or so. I could be enticed to go back.
11 p.m.: We get back to the hotel, and I haven’t even gone through all my emails for the day. I do that, responding to each like always, and then upback that 46-pound suitcase I weighed about 21 hours earlier. Then I hit the sack. Some days I don’t earn a good night’s sleep. This day, I had.
Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel.
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You suck