Turner's Take: Bowl Prep Behind the Scenes
December 20, 2013 | Football, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
This weekend, the Carolina football staff will pick up Kenan Football Center and move it 142 miles southwest to set up camp in Charlotte. Not literally, of course, but as assistant equipment manager Jason Freeman put it, “Everything in this building goes in a 53-foot tractor trailer.”
The base of operations for the Tar Heel football program moves to the Queen City for a week ahead of next Saturday's Belk Bowl. The student-athletes and coaches will take the field on December 28, but everything that leads up to that point (and after it) is the result of some tremendous behind-the-scenes work that starts months in advance.
Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham and his senior staff, like Rick Steinbacher, associate athletic director for marketing and external relations, put together a picture of what they want Carolina's presence to look like on the postseason stage a bowl provides. “What's going to be our overall goal and mission for the bowl, and what are the overall guidelines of how Bubba wants to see it run,” director of football operations Joe Haydon explained. “Then, the actual planning process itself will start a few weeks before, once we actually get bowl-qualified, or once we start thinking it's going to happen.”
Just like fans and media, personnel in the athletic department keep tabs on the whisperings of bowl invitations to try to get an idea of what to plan for. The athletic department staff determines the official travel party from the administration side. Downstairs at Kenan Football Center, equipment manager and director of football business operations Dominic Morelli is calculating per diems and working out bowl gift details. Next-door to Haydon is Corey Holliday, associate athletic director for football administration, working with Larry Fedora and the coaching staff. Haydon is the point person for hotel and transportation logistics, security and meals. It's a team effort long before the team sees the field.
Haydon said Cunningham is “very forward-thinking” in his planning with regard to bowl games. There are plans ready to be pulled up for any potential bowl game that the Tar Heels might participate in, with details to be sketched in upon an invitation. “Everything from who's going, what are the dates, what's our overall focus of this bowl, for each spot,” Haydon said. “Are we flying? Are we driving? How are we getting everybody there?”
Given the timing and location of the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, the student-athletes are getting themselves to the game. Some will be flying in and out of Charlotte from their homes, and those details need to be planned for. For a typical road game, the Tar Heels might charter a flight, then arrange bus transportation to and from the airport. With the holidays, there are many more variables. “You may think without a flight, it'd be easier, but there are actually a lot more complications involved,” Haydon said. The Tar Heels will have four team buses in Charlotte, and four shuttle buses for bowl-related events.
Carolina has played in the Charlotte bowl before (2004, 2008, 2009), so Haydon is familiar with some of the itinerary for the event. But things change from year to year, of course. The Tar Heels will stay in a different hotel this year, for example, taking up 150 rooms for a week and another 120 for the night before the game. The game has a new sponsor since the last time the Tar Heels played in Charlotte, and the bowl experience will therefore be a bit different.
As participants in the Belk Bowl, the Tar Heel players will get a Belk shopping spree on the night they arrive in addition to a watch and a football. Haydon will see that the buses get loaded up for a trip to SouthPark Mall, and the Belk store will be open exclusively for the Tar Heels. “The whole store's going to be us. They can go in and pick anything out that they want within the amount,” Haydon said. “Thankfully, we're going first, before Cincinnati, so hopefully our guys will get the first pick of everything.” The players will then be responsible for getting their purchases home.
That prompts a sigh of relief downstairs in the equipment room, because sometimes things can be difficult for the Tar Heel equipment staff. Sometimes, they're dealing with a wholly unfamiliar sort of equipment. “It was Shreveport, I guess,” Freeman said, trying to recall the particular bowl that offered a very large gift. “They went into a room and picked out their bowl gift, and then they shipped it all here. We were responsible for unloading it. We had recliners, and it was like, 'Where do we store all this stuff?'” Freeman said. “Some guys got recliners, and some guys got XBoxes, so keeping all that sorted was a little tough. With Belk, at least they'll be able to go to the store, get it, and then it's theirs to take back. It's a little easier on us.”
That's about all that's easy on the equipment staff this time of year. The tractor trailer branded with the imagery of the Tar Heel football program will be packed with equipment for delivery at three sites (hotel, practice facility, Bank of America Stadium) and arrive in Charlotte on Saturday, December 21. That's when the equipment staff will begin unpacking and attempting to make Charlotte feel like Chapel Hill.
Early this week, the equipment staff had packed the coaches' game clothes. Anything the staff might need for the duration of the football game has long been packed. “I've packed their dress pants, their polos, cold weather jackets, cold weather gear whether it's toboggans gloves, tight undershirts, tight bottoms . . . I've already packed all that stuff up. Toiletries, they're packed. We've got some for the practice facility, so if they get done and they want to take a shower, we've got shampoo, we've got razors, we've got shaving cream, we've got soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant . . .” It's a lot to think about, and that's just for the coaches. The game jerseys, embroidered with the Belk Bowl logo, will go in a special trunk headed to the hotel. Not the game site, because the jerseys will be worn at events throughout the week.
Also stuffed onto that trailer? Office supplies for the Tar Heel football support staff. After all, it's still a working game week, and the staff will be set up to conduct business in a room at the team hotel. The athletic training equipment is on there, too, for three sites to tape and treat student-athletes. The nutrition staff has a cart of bars and gels and whatnot. Lou Hernandez and his strength and conditioning staff may want to bring along some equipment. The Tar Heel assistants will want step-over dummies and hand shields, cones, pylons and goalpost pads for practice at a local high school. “There are certain things I can't bring,” Freeman said. “I can't bring the blaster, the big running back chute that they run through. I can't bring that. I can't bring a five- man sled. The high school's got some stuff, but it's not necessarily the kind that they're using, so I'll bring as much as I can.” Suddenly a 53-foot tractor trailer doesn't seem like enough.
Freeman and the staff load the front of the truck first, with jerseys and equipment to be used at the game site, the truck's last stop (Carolina can't get into the locker room until Monday, after the New Orleans Saints have left town). Then it's likely the things needed at the practice facility, then the hotel. “You've got to make sure you pull off the right stuff at each one,” Freeman said. “You're constantly making sure you get everything you need before you send it to its next site. 'Do we have everything we need? OK, let's go over the truck one more time.'”
The Tar Heel players and coaches' job is to win a football game next Saturday. The support staff's job is to put them in the best position to be able to do that. The student-athletes and coaches will have finished their seasons upon the game's conclusion. Haydon and Freeman aren't quite done.
“It usually takes us four hours to do game laundry after the game,” Freeman said. He and the equipment staff will have to unpack the truck so that the rest of the Kenan Football Center denizens can find what they need upon returning to work. Just based on the game time and travel involved, Freeman estimated it'd be 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning before he left the football center.
On a typical away-game weekend, Haydon would be able to relax only after the buses pulled back into the football center parking lot and all the players and coaches had found their vehicles. This time, with everyone scattering in different directions, it's a little bit different. Haydon and his wife will stay Saturday night and begin to head back to Chapel Hill the next day. “I'm going to want to get home as quickly as possible, and she's going to make sure we do a little shopping at IKEA before we get back,” he said. Upon his return, there's work to be done for January enrollees and preparing for a big recruiting weekend in mid-January.
It never stops for the Tar Heel support staff. Is it all worth it?
“Yeah, it's worth it,” Freeman said. “You get these young guys extra practice time. That's what people need to realize is what these bowl practices allow you to do, by having so many extra practices, you can get the young guys a lot of work.”
Spoken like a football lifer.