DENVER – Superstitions
in sports have always fascinated me. In my 10-plus years of working with
athletes and coaches in college and professional sports, I have found that 90
percent of them are superstitious and the other 10 percent aren’t admitting it.
I was once told by one professional
athlete here in Denver that his prominent teammate was so superstitious that he
thought it would mess up his mojo if he admitted his superstitions. Most of the
time, it’s something as simple as not shaving during the playoffs or always
dribbling twice before a free throw. Or perhaps it’s a coach who does not watch
his players shoot free throws. When it comes down to it, though, most people in
sports are at least a little superstitious.
I bring this up because of a shirt.
Denver radio voice Mitch Hyder owns a camel-colored shirt
that he describes as “about five years old and borderline out of style.” Hyder
also has expressed a desire to burn the shirt so that he won’t have to wear it
again. The problem? The Pioneers are 11-2 on days when Hyder sports the khaki
top. It started Dec. 8 last season when, feeling about as adventurous as he
gets, Mitch decided to break out a shirt that he had not worn very often. That
night, Denver beat Northern Colorado 69-53, and the shirt was 1-0. You probably
know what came next. The Pioneers won the next seven home games, and Mitch
could be spotted at each and every one of them donning the camel hair creation.
The shirt was 8-0, and we all wondered why Hyder never packed the thing for a
road trip. When the home season ended last year with a pair of losses to Middle
Tennessee and New Orleans, we thought the shirt might have run out of magic.
The shirt was 8-2 heading into the offseason, and Hyder claimed he was going to
donate it to Goodwill over the summer.
Hyder claims that he wasn’t the one believing in the shirt,
but for some reason after DU lost to Northern Colorado in the first home game
this season, Hyder did indeed take the shirt to Montana. You are probably way
ahead of me on this one. Yes, he wore it when the Pioneers defeated
Texas-Arlington, a very good team that was picked to win the Southland
Conference this season after making the NCAA Tournament last year. When Denver
returned to Magness Arena to face South Dakota State, Hyder was spotted along
press row with the camel shirt, which as I mentioned before stands at 11-2.
In case you’re wondering, Mitch is wearing the shirt right
now in preparation for tonight’s game against Florida Atlantic.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 10
Total Mileage Flown
– 6,593
Total Bus Miles –
969
Total Number of
Hotels – 6
Total Number of
Different Airports – 6
Total Number of
Airline Delays – 1
Total Number of Cancelled
Flights – 1
Total Number of Bags
Lost – 1
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Cal State Northridge - 12/9/08
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. – The trip to LAX was as exciting as ever. Shortly before heading to the airport, the team’s flight was canceled, forcing John Fitzgerald,
DU’s director of basketball operations, to scramble and try to rebook
20 seats on the next scheduled flight. When dealing with road trips,
guys like Fitzgerald are often the unsung heroes. Anyone who has been
stuck rescheduling a flight for himself knows what a pain it can be.
These guys have to deal with 20 people. On top of that, he’s in charge
of making sure the bus is at the airport when we arrive and, perhaps
most important, how the team is going to eat dinner. After arriving at
the hotel, the players dropped off their bags and then went straight to
the hotel restaurant, where sandwiches and fruit salad were waiting for
them. The thing about Fitzgerald’s job is that his work is generally
only recognized when something goes wrong. Fortunately for all of us,
Fitzgerald makes sure everything runs so smoothly that we often don’t
even know there might have been a problem.
The
drive from the airport to the hotel was only about 30 miles, but it
took about an hour to get there. That got me thinking about the many
comments we get about the places we travel, especially within the Sun
Belt Conference. To put it in perspective, Denton, Texas, (North Texas)
is less than 45 minutes from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
Murfreesboro, Tenn., (Middle Tennessee) is about 30 minutes from
Nashville, which is also within about an hour of Bowling Green, Ky.
(Western Kentucky). In other words, the majority of the places we travel
are within a short bus trip of a major airport, although there of
course are a few exceptions.
As
we were driving around the campus on the way to the gym, it appeared
there may be more land devoted to parking lots than campus buildings
here at Cal State Northridge. There are 36,208 students enrolled, and I
was told that all of them commute. The high enrollment number is not
reflected in the size of the Matadome, which holds 1,500 people.
Needless to say, it’s a cozy atmosphere. It’s 1:30 p.m., and the team is
at shoot around, a little later than usual. Generally teams shoot
around in the morning so that there is plenty of time to recover before
the game. However, the facilities have to be shared with other sports,
like men and women’s volleyball which also play at the Matadome, so the
teams take what they can get. Finally, when you’re talking about a
school this big in a place like California, it’s hard not to mention the
famous alumni of the school. This one has quite a few: Phil Hartman,
Paula Abdul, Richard Dreyfuss, Eva Mendez and Bob Eubanks, just to name a
few. No report if any of them are heading to the Matadome to watch the
game.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 9
Total Mileage Flown – 5,731
Total Bus Miles – 903
Total Number of Hotels – 6
Total Number of Different Airports – 6
Total Number of Airline Delays – 1
Total Number of Bags Lost – 0
Total Number of Ice Cream Drops on Mitch Hyder’s Pants – 1 (Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy)
Friday, December 5, 2008
Montana - 12/5/08
MISSOULA, Mont., Wednesday – I
got a good question this morning: how does a basketball team fit its
legs under the seats of small planes, like the one we flew this morning
from Denver to Missoula? The best answer involves a shoehorn and Crisco
oil. The real answer is never comfortably, especially the taller
players, who sometimes look like accordions when they’re crammed
into the planes. On most flights, the airline representatives are kind
enough avoid sticking the players in middle seats, but on the smaller
planes, none of the seats really work. To make things even less
comfortable, the players generally can’t recline their seats without
smashing the knees of teammates sitting behind them.
The
Missoula airport is an interesting place. It’s got a hunting lodge feel
to it, complete with stuffed bears, elk and mountain lions, including
one that’s in the process of hunting down a mountain goat. Overall, the
trip was uneventful, which is what we want. We got in about 1 p.m.
today, checked into the hotel and then headed straight over to the arena
to practice. Surprisingly, it’s actually nine degrees warmer in
Missoula right now than it is in Denver. It’s a crisp 34 degrees with
clear blue skies. This is the first time most of us have traveled up
here for a game, although Denver did play here in 2003, so trainer Pat
Hoxsey and radio voice Mitch Hyder are repeat visitors. With the giant
grizzly bear logo in the center, Montana’s court is one of the better
looking ones we’ve seen.
Thursday – It’s game day against Montana tonight, and we have learned that Andrew Hooper has a problem with his left Achilles that will keep him out of both games here in Missoula. As a result, it looks like Justin Coughlin
will get his first action in an NCAA Division I game. According to
Coughlin, the moment he walks onto the court, he will become the first
D-I basketball player from the town of Yuma, Colo., in 60 years. While
most of us made it in yesterday, radio voice Mitch Hyder had to fly in
this morning after calling the DU women’s game at Colorado State last
night. Congratulations to Erik Johnson, his staff and his team for a
great win. Hyder wasn’t alone on the flight. In fact, in addition to the
entire Texas-Arlington contingent, the parents of Rob Lewis were on the flight.
Friday – Last
night’s loss was tough. The loss of Hooper certainly hurt us in the
second half, although Montana played really well after the break.
Coughlin ended up starting the game and looked good. The kid is
certainly thin, but he had been doing very well in practice, and his
good instincts showed up during the game. Fellow freshman Travis Hallam
also got 21 minutes of action, four times his previous high, and
drilled a pair of three-pointers as time expired on the shot clock. Brian Stafford,
who has started every game as a freshman, seems to be growing up fast
on the court. He had a pair of steals last night and looked more
comfortable shooting. There is no question that these young players are
going to continue to make freshmen mistakes, but like the rest of the
team they are getting better every day. Obviously, nobody is happy with
the record, but the team’s steady improvement shows great signs as Coach
Scott and his staff build the program for long-term success.
We’ve
got a tough opponent tonight in the Mavericks. They are picked to win
the Southland Conference, ahead of Lamar, which beat us earlier in the
season. They played four neutral site games last year and won three of
them. The one they lost? It was in the NCAA Tournament against Memphis,
which fell in overtime to Kansas in the national championship game. UTA
is picked to win the SLC title this season. To top it off, the Mavericks
have been off since last Saturday and were allowed to watch our game
against Montana last night, two big advantages for them. However, as the
Pioneers run through this morning’s shoot around, the players look
focused and ready for tonight’s game. And, while UTA was 3-1 in neutral
site games last season, DU has not lost on a neutral site since the
2005-06 season. Nobody is giving up home. Everybody knows that this is a
winnable game.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 7
Total Mileage Flown – 4,190
Total Bus Miles – 798
Total Number of Hotels – 5
Total Number of Different Airports – 5
Total Number of Airline Delays – 0
Total Number of Bags Lost – 0
Total Number of Airports Filled with Taxidermy – 1 (Missoula)
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