DENVER - Tonight's
a big night for Nate Rohnert. He's
heading back to his old stomping grounds at Chaparral High School, which is
going to retire Nate's high school jersey during halftime of the Wolverines
game against Mountain Vista.
A four-year starter, Nate remains Chaparral's all-time
career leader in points, assists and steals. As a senior, he led the Wolverines
to the Colorado Class 5A Great 8 and earned All-Colorado honors.
Nate is now a
senior guard with the Pioneers and continues to climb up the Denver record books. Rohnert is
18th on DU's all-time scorer list with 1,145 points, 11 points from John
Johnson (1,156 points) for 17th place and 21 away from Mark Ziegler (1,166
points) in 16th place. The senior captain is sixth on Denver's all-time career
list with 316 assists, 327 career free throws made and 456 free throw attempts.
With 109 career steals, Rohnert is two shy of Dave Collignon (111) for 10th
place on DU's all-time list.
Last year Nate was named All-Sun Belt
Conference First Team, and he already has won SBC Player of the Week honors
twice this season.
This is quite an honor for Nate, and it's
well deserved.
Caught Traveling: For whatever reason, the Denver team
always seems to run into trouble traveling to and from Monroe, La., the site of
last Saturday's game.
Two years ago, we planned to drive to
Shreveport after the night game against the Warhawks, catch some sleep and then
jump on the first flight of the morning to Dallas, where we would connect to Denver.
However, as we were pulling into the hotel around 2 a.m., the airline called to
let us know that our morning flight had been cancelled. So, we checked into the
hotel, slept for about an hour and then jumped right back in the bus for a
four-hour ride to Dallas.
Regular readers of this blog might
remember the memorable trip to Monroe last season, when the airline forgot to
load the luggage of every member of the DU travel party on the plane, leaving
the team to wonder if they would have uniforms for the game.
This year's trip was perhaps not to the level of those
last two, but it did showcase a few examples of the challenges, or at least odd
situations, that the team faces on the road.
After the two-hour drive through a rainstorm, the team
arrived at the Shreveport Regional Airport and was told that the flight had
been delayed by an hour. That was concerning, considering that our connection
time was roughly 60 minutes. Quick calculations determined that we were better
off taking the chance, since trying to drive to DFW in time would have been
nearly impossible.
Chase Hallam
told me that he had been looking forward to getting something to eat while we
waited at the airport. Call it a freshman mistake. Because we were apparently
on the final flight of the day, nothing was open in the airport.
There were some vending machines and a microwave, so at
least one of the coaches dined on Cup Noodles.
Instead of being an hour delayed, the airline
representative came on the intercom early to say, "Due to the weather, we are
going to ask everyone to board at once, instead of by the usual sections." None
of us had any idea why weather affected such a things, but we lined up anyway.
As the final two members of the travel party were
boarding, the gentleman taking the boarding passes stopped them and said, "I
have a question for you guys. Do either of you have a dollar that I can have?" In
mild shock, they shook their heads and handed him their boarding passes.
It seems that one person on the plane did not match the
number of boarding passes they had (they were collected, not scanned), so to
figure out who the extra passenger was, they called role. Just as a second
grade teacher might on the first day of class, they called each name and the
corresponding passenger pushed the flight attendant call button. Everyone got a
nice laugh when they butchered trainer Pat Hoxsey's and assistant coach's A.J. Kuhle's
names.
In the end, one passenger had inadvertently kept his
boarding pass and after handing it over, the propellers started spinning and we
were ready for takeoff.
When we arrived to Dallas, there was just enough time to
rush to the connector gate, leaving Chase Hallam even hungrier.
Despite the challenges - and short delay - the team made
it back to Denver and their own beds on Saturday night. By the way, in order to
remember all the details, all notes were written on an airsickness bag.
One Last Thing: One
astute reader of the last blog questioned the final statistic on the "Yearly
travel totals," which read, "Total Number of Dead Opossums that Assistant Coach Jon Jordan Saw on His Run in Monroe - 1."
To answer your question, Dan W. of Denver, there is a
distinct possibility that the animal was not dead and was simply "playing
opossum." Truth be told, I went running along the same route as Coach Jordan
later in the day but saw no evidence of a opossum, either dead or alive.
Thanks for reading, Dan W., and please keep those
questions and comments rolling in.
Yearly travel
totals:
Total Flights
- 11
Total Mileage
Flown - 7,685
Total Bus Miles
- 1,089
Total Number of
Hotels - 6
Total Number of
Different Airports - 9
Total Number of
Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of
Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of
Bags Lost This Year - 0
Total Number of Ticket
Takers Who Asked the Team for $1 - 1
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