Thursday, January 28, 2010

Arkansas-Little Rock - 1/28/10

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Looking out on the court during shoot around here at the Jack Stephens Center, it's nice to see director of basketball operations John Fitzgerald wearing his own clothing.

Fitzgerald, who does a great job of making sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible at home and on the road, was the first victim of lost luggage this season. During practice yesterday, he was wearing a collection of clothing from the other coaches, including shoes that were clearly bigger than his normal size.

All of us who have waited hours and/or days for an airline to finally deliver a clean change of clothing and a toothbrush know just how miserable it can be.

The team arrived at the Little Rock Airport yesterday afternoon, and it felt like home away from home. Loyal readers of this blog may remember that the team flew through this airport four of the last five weeks of last season.

The Jack Stephens Center is one of the nicer venues in the Sun Belt Conference with 5,600 seats, but the place has not been nice to the Pioneers. Denver is looking for its first win in Little Rock after falling in the first even trips to UALR. There is always a little added incentive to get revenge on the team that ended your season, which the Trojans did last year, and the Pioneers are hoping to do so tonight.

Rohnert Number Update: Chaparral High School did a nice job when they retired the No. 24 jersey of alum and current Pioneer Nate Rohnert last week. Nate's high school coach Jason Jacob, who has since left Chaparral, joined current Wolverines coach Robert Johnson during the ceremony.

In a nice move, Johnson's players all emerged from the lockerroom to watch the ceremony and show some appreciation for Rohnert.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the ceremony was nearly over when a fire alarm began blaring. It seems that someone burned popcorn in the concessions area, so everyone was ushered from the gym until safety was ensured.

The Red Light: When the team travels to a night game, like tonight, the Pioneers stay in a hotel until about 5 p.m., when they check out and head to the arena. In order to do this, special arrangements are made with the hotel to allow an extra late check out.

While it's a very convenient process for the most part, sometimes technology is not quite flawless. Most hotels are set to have the key cards expire no later than 2 p.m.

So at about 2:15 p.m., the lobby starts to fill with members of the travel party asking the front desk to reactivate their room keys. It's really not a problem or a big deal, but it is a fairly common occurrence, although it seems to happen most often when the block of rooms is in the farthest point in the hotel from the lobby. In fact, it's happened each of the last three trips to Little Rock, including today.

Fortunately, like usual, the woman at the front desk smiled each time and quickly fixed everyone's key.

Yearly travel totals:       

Total Flights - 12

Total Mileage Flown - 8,455

Total Bus Miles - 1,138

Total Number of Hotels - 7

Total Number of Different Airports - 10

Total Number of Airline Delays - 1

Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0

Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1

Total Consecutive Years the Hotel Key Cards Have Been Deactivated in Little Rock - 1

Total Number of Fire Alarms Going off During Nate Rohnert's High School Jersey Retirement - 1


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