HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Spirits around the team are high following last night's 15-point win
over Middle Tennessee.
This team is running
through shoot around at Lakeside High School, just outside of town. None of the
teams can use Summit Arena, because of all the other games going on.
The players seem to be
comfortable with the late starts this week, even if it means chicken sandwiches
at an 11 p.m. dinner.
The team will get together
around 4 p.m. for its usual pregame meal of chicken, pasta, veggies, salad and
rolls. Other than that, everyone needs to rest up for tonight's game.
Speaking of tonight's
game, it will be available on the Sun Belt Network, which means anyone with the
Full Court package can view it, including most sports bars around Denver (and
the rest of the country). It will also be available on ESPN360.com.
More About Hot Springs: Bridge Street in downtown Hot Springs is
allegedly the shortest street in the world. At least, that's what Ripley's
Believe It or Not declared it in the 1940s. It's a strange connector between two
other diagonal streets that form a small triangle.
It
takes roughly 45 steps to get from one end of Bridge Street to the other, and
every year they host a parade on March 17. This year's edition is called "The
First Ever Seventh Annual World's Smallest St. Patrick's Day Parade," and the
grand marshal will be Bo Derek. Previous grand marshals have included John
Ratzenberger (Cliff C. Clavin on Cheers), Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs), Mario Lopez
(A.C Slater on Saved By the Bell) and George Wendt (Norm Peterson from Cheers).
The
Irish Order of Elvi is also slated to march.
Food Inc.: Breakfast this
morning was interesting, and actually pretty funny. Generally on the road, the
team eats breakfast at a buffet, so everyone loads his plate with whatever he
wants. This morning, however, there was no buffet opened, so everyone ordered
off the menu.
The
problem was that when they brought the food out, the table numbers apparently
were mixed up, so each of the 12 or so tables ended up with food that one of
the other tables ordered.
Because
almost everyone in the travel party is easy-going, everyone seemed to just
shrug and eat whatever the server put in front of him. It didn't take long
before everyone realized what was happening, but by that point everyone was
digging into their plate. And nobody seemed to mind.
Is that a Sign?:
When
you travel through enough town and along enough highways, you start noticing
some strange street signs, messages on stores and other such attention getters.
Here are the two best so far on this trip:
"T-Shirts
and Concealed Weapons Permits"
"Dodge's
Chicken and Check Cashing"
Yearly travel
totals:
Total Flights
- 21
Total Mileage Flown - 16,609
Total Bus Miles
- 1,752
Total Number of Hotels - 15
Total Number of Different Airports - 14
Total Number of Airline Delays - 2
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times the Team Bus Has Broken Down - 1
Total Number of People in the 24-Man Travel Party to
Get What They Actually Ordered at Breakfast This Morning - 0
Monday, March 8, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
First Day at the SBC Tournament - 3/6/10
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The
Pioneers are ready to start the Sun Belt Conference Tournament tonight.
It's a late start with an 8:45 p.m. local tip (7:45 p.m. MT).
The team left Denver on Friday morning and headed straight to Philander Smith College, where the team practiced for a couple hours.
Hot Springs is about an hour west of Little Rock, and the bus ran into some rush hour traffic on the way out of town.
However, the interesting part of the trip involved the bus going up a hill, when everything electric shut down and the bus rolled to a slow stop on the side of the highway. It turned out to be a minor issue, as the driver apologized, got out and went to reboot some sort of computer system. After that, the bus cruised without incident (although the company did switch buses after dropping the team off).
Everyone walked down the street and had a nice meal before the players went back to the hotel to rest up for tonight's game.
With 10 games taking place between Summit Arena and the Convention Center Court, the team did its shoot around at a local high school.
More on Philander Smith College: Hanging from the rafters of Philander Smith is the number of a highly recognizable player, even though he never played in the NBA.
Hubert "Geese" Ausbie graduated from Philander Smith in 1960 and immediately joined the Harlem Globetrotters and played with the team for the next 21 years, eventually becoming the "Clown Prince of Basketball" after Meadowlark Lemon.
Those of a certain age will also remember Geese from his role in The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. He was also portrayed a few times on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, although he did not perform his own voice.
About Hot Springs: The boyhood home of Bill Clinton is surrounded on three sides by the Hot Springs National Park. The hotels are all within walking distance of the arena, and the downtown section is lined with restaurants and other establishments.
And, of course, there are taps in the middle of town, where people bring bottles to fill up with natural spring water. We were told last night that people come from miles to fill up on the water. Some even use it for bathing, and some have said it has healing powers, whatever that means.
Even though it's only an hour from Arkansas-Little Rock, Hot Springs really has the feel of a neutral site - a place where fans from every team can gather and cheer for their teams. Based on the number of team shirts, there are plenty of fans for every team.
In fact, there appear to be a lot more fans than last year, which could be because all 13 men's teams and 13 women's teams made the trip, meaning that fans knew their team would be here.
Thanks to trainer Pat Hoxsey, we have also learned more history about the area. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Brooklyn Nationals, Chicago White Stockings and Boston Red Sox held spring training here, according to the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Among those people who vacationed in Hot Springs were Babe Ruth, Joe Louis and, of course, notorious gangster Al Capone.
According to the Garland County Historical Society:
Our most famous visitor down through the ages.... must have been Al Capone. During the prohibition era, Capone came from Chicago to strike deals with bootleggers in Hot Springs to stock his clubs in Chicago with alcohol. Not only is Hot Springs a remote town located in the middle of the Ouachita mountains, but the pine trees provide "cover" for the moonshine stills year round. Capone would ship his bootleg liquor in tanker railroad cars, and for protection, he had the words "Mountain Valley Water" painted on the side of the railcars!
In Chicago, Detroit, New York - when the heat was on because of a robbery or murder, the overlords knew where to come to relax in safety. Hot Springs was a sanctuary from prosecution and enemies. Gangsters could enjoy the entertainment of gambling, and be pampered with the hot mineral baths and massages.
At one time, Capone and his entourage occupied the 4th floor of the Arlington Hotel. (Legend has it that Capone always stayed in room 442, and that the Arlington Hotel has locked that room up and will not rent it to anyone to this day) Capone's arch enemy Bugs Moran and his gang were checked in at the Majestic Hotel, just one block away. There was no conflict, and no violence - both gangsters were on vacation!
Without giving away the location of the Pioneers this week, let's just say sightings of Capone's ghost are not out of the question.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 21
Total Mileage Flown - 16,609
Total Bus Miles - 1,752
Total Number of Hotels - 15
Total Number of Different Airports - 14
Total Number of Airline Delays - 2
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times the Team Bus Has Broken Down - 1
The team left Denver on Friday morning and headed straight to Philander Smith College, where the team practiced for a couple hours.
Hot Springs is about an hour west of Little Rock, and the bus ran into some rush hour traffic on the way out of town.
However, the interesting part of the trip involved the bus going up a hill, when everything electric shut down and the bus rolled to a slow stop on the side of the highway. It turned out to be a minor issue, as the driver apologized, got out and went to reboot some sort of computer system. After that, the bus cruised without incident (although the company did switch buses after dropping the team off).
Everyone walked down the street and had a nice meal before the players went back to the hotel to rest up for tonight's game.
With 10 games taking place between Summit Arena and the Convention Center Court, the team did its shoot around at a local high school.
More on Philander Smith College: Hanging from the rafters of Philander Smith is the number of a highly recognizable player, even though he never played in the NBA.
Hubert "Geese" Ausbie graduated from Philander Smith in 1960 and immediately joined the Harlem Globetrotters and played with the team for the next 21 years, eventually becoming the "Clown Prince of Basketball" after Meadowlark Lemon.
Those of a certain age will also remember Geese from his role in The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. He was also portrayed a few times on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, although he did not perform his own voice.
About Hot Springs: The boyhood home of Bill Clinton is surrounded on three sides by the Hot Springs National Park. The hotels are all within walking distance of the arena, and the downtown section is lined with restaurants and other establishments.
And, of course, there are taps in the middle of town, where people bring bottles to fill up with natural spring water. We were told last night that people come from miles to fill up on the water. Some even use it for bathing, and some have said it has healing powers, whatever that means.
Even though it's only an hour from Arkansas-Little Rock, Hot Springs really has the feel of a neutral site - a place where fans from every team can gather and cheer for their teams. Based on the number of team shirts, there are plenty of fans for every team.
In fact, there appear to be a lot more fans than last year, which could be because all 13 men's teams and 13 women's teams made the trip, meaning that fans knew their team would be here.
Thanks to trainer Pat Hoxsey, we have also learned more history about the area. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Brooklyn Nationals, Chicago White Stockings and Boston Red Sox held spring training here, according to the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Among those people who vacationed in Hot Springs were Babe Ruth, Joe Louis and, of course, notorious gangster Al Capone.
According to the Garland County Historical Society:
Our most famous visitor down through the ages.... must have been Al Capone. During the prohibition era, Capone came from Chicago to strike deals with bootleggers in Hot Springs to stock his clubs in Chicago with alcohol. Not only is Hot Springs a remote town located in the middle of the Ouachita mountains, but the pine trees provide "cover" for the moonshine stills year round. Capone would ship his bootleg liquor in tanker railroad cars, and for protection, he had the words "Mountain Valley Water" painted on the side of the railcars!
In Chicago, Detroit, New York - when the heat was on because of a robbery or murder, the overlords knew where to come to relax in safety. Hot Springs was a sanctuary from prosecution and enemies. Gangsters could enjoy the entertainment of gambling, and be pampered with the hot mineral baths and massages.
At one time, Capone and his entourage occupied the 4th floor of the Arlington Hotel. (Legend has it that Capone always stayed in room 442, and that the Arlington Hotel has locked that room up and will not rent it to anyone to this day) Capone's arch enemy Bugs Moran and his gang were checked in at the Majestic Hotel, just one block away. There was no conflict, and no violence - both gangsters were on vacation!
Without giving away the location of the Pioneers this week, let's just say sightings of Capone's ghost are not out of the question.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 21
Total Mileage Flown - 16,609
Total Bus Miles - 1,752
Total Number of Hotels - 15
Total Number of Different Airports - 14
Total Number of Airline Delays - 2
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times the Team Bus Has Broken Down - 1
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