University of North Carolina Athletics
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
February 18, 2000 | Baseball
Feb. 18, 2000
By: Travis Everette, Carolina Baseball
Los Angeles, California--For any of you who have never seen the John Candy/Steve Martin comedy classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, I highly reccomend it, however, Carolina Baseball put on a pretty good rendition of the plot on Thursday as they made their way to sunny L.A. Everything was seemingly fine as the motorcoach rolled out of Boshamer Stadium with a very sleepy load of Heels at 7:30a.m., but the bliss only lasted as far as the fifteen minute ride to Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
After all 100 bags had been checked and each person had gone through line to get a boarding pass, we thought we were home free and even had an hour or so to spare to stop by the Burger King in Terminal A and pick up some french toast stix and a croissanwich. Just as all the players had walked off and gone upstairs to file through the metal detectors, US Airways informed Coach Mike Fox that our flight leaving Raleigh for Pittsburgh was delayed because of mechanical problems and we would miss our connection to Los Angeles. Oh great, the prospect of flying a party of 32 to L.A. on standby did not seem too thrilling, so Lydia at the counter went to work.
Finally, at about 9:25 she found space on an American flight that left at 9:41. That seemed to be our only option and so we took it. Now, the real problem was that US Airways, our original airline, flies out of Terminal A, but American uses Terminal C. If you haven't ever been to Raleigh-Durham International, know that there is about a half mile of parking lot between the two terminals.
So, the race was on. The team was sent over to our new terminal while Coach Fox, Coach Roger Williams, and myself all waited in the old terminal at the USAir counter for our new tickets. Believe me when I say that had it not been for an extremely nice man driving the AVIS rental car bus, that Carolina Baseball may not have made it to UCLA, because a track star I am not. So we jump off of the AVIS bus with a full eight minutes to spare, do the whole sprint through the airport deal and make the flight. Whew!, we thought, glad that one is over. Only, now the fun was just beginning.
The flight to Chicago's O'hare International was admittedly without a hitch, and I am eternally thankful that American could take us at such late notice. That being said, I have to wonder who plans a cross-country trip on a plane that has no movie and no room to move for five hours? Instead of the 757 Wide Body that we were supposed to be on where you could have wandered around, stood up for a while, and relaxed a little, we were jammed into the most full aircraft in the history of mass air travel. Elbow to elbow on an MD-80 where the Air Conditioning was very effective at dripping water into your lap out of the overhead vent but cooling was not an option. And, of course, most of us were in rows 27-32 back where you don't have far to walk for the toilet. I must say that I didn't have a hard time seeing everyone because myself and Sports Information Director David Tinson were in the very last row. That's right, those lovely two seats right in front of the facilities that don't recline. But, no matter. We were finally on our way to Southern California. Not so fast my friend.
The first clue that our departure would not be on time was the announcement that this flight had been overbooked. Hmm, I wonder how that could have happened with a group of 32 getting on the flight last minute. So, about 40 minutes after we boarded, they had finally found enough volunteers to get off of the plane and we were on our way. I think it was during the 20 minute taxi out to runway 43 that the baby two rows up started crying. I couldn't blame him, with my knees under my chin I felt like crying too. So now we are sitting and waiting, and the captain again informs us of a snag. It seems that the plane is overweight so we can't take off from the primary departure runway, we have to use the longer runway that is currently employed for arrivals. No sweat, just wait for a hole in the arrivals and we'll be gone. About that time I realized that O'hare is the busiest airport in the world, and there really weren't going to be too many holes in that arrival schedule. Unfortunately, I was right, and over an hour into our flight, we were still sitting on the tarmac waiting for that takeoff opportunity.
The flight did finally take off and landed safely at Los Angeles International, and the baby even stopped crying somewhere over Nevada which made the last 30 minutes peaceful. We were all so happy to be here that I didn't even get too upset when my bag came off of the baggage claim looking like it had been beaten by that gorilla in the old Samsonite commercial. Now all is well and the Diamond Heels are ready for their matchup with UCLA.
After all, Carolina didn't have the best trip out here last season either and all they did was win the Pepsi/Johnny Quick Classic and run their school record start to 16-0. Maybe bad flights make for good omens. We can only hope they do.
