Sports

’Cats face 30 hours on bus for next game

• Long bus rides are a part of life in the af2, so as the Wildcats embark on their longest journey of the year, they know the unpredictable nature of packing an entire team into one vehicle makes for a unique experience.

Paul Dehner Jr.

ALBANY — Friday night at 10 p.m., 30 South Georgia Wildcats players and coaches boarded a bus and pulled out of the Albany Civic Center parking lot.

After 915 miles, sometime late this afternoon, they will arrive at their destination in Austin, Texas, in preparation for Sunday’s 4 p.m. game against the Austin Wranglers.

For a team constantly mixing the delicate concoction of veterans and rookies, coaches and players, jokers and introverts, spending approximately 30 hours round trip inside an apartment on wheels provides one potentially explosive chemistry experiment.

Some can be productive. Some can be divisive. Most can be long. All are unpredictable.

But in the af2, these trips are a way of life. As in life, survival involves knowing the secrets.

“You’ve got to get a bottom bed,” QB Andrico Hines said. “My first trip, a couple years ago, we went to Arkansas, and I thought, ‘I’ve got it figured out, I will get a top bed.’ That was the worst mistake of my life. I am not going to say I am claustrophobic, but there is not much room. You are scared to roll one way because it is a long way down.”

The race for the bottom beds provides a comedic starting point for what consistently is a festive trip to the destination.

To pass time, players break out their favorite forms of mobile entertainment. Defensive back Roland Cola mixes beats on his PSP. Defensive lineman Joe Woolridge prefers an iPod and video games. Some players revert to old-fashioned entertainment.

“I will just laugh at the guys,” Woolridge said. “I am sure I will hear Courtney Young and Andre Slappey joking on me.”

Coach Derek Stingley rides on every trip with his players and acts as conductor of this wild ride.

This weekend’s trip will be the longest of the season as the team will fly to a later game in Spokane, Wash.

While this drive elicits a small groan from the coach, he knows the journeys can be beneficial to the overall health of his team.

“There is a lot of comedy,” he said. “You really get to know certain individuals. From a coach’s standpoint, you get to know them outside of players. The players get an opportunity to see coaches in a different light, instead of diagramming plays, yelling and fussing. It brings camaraderie which every team in this league needs to be successful.”

The road has brought success under Stingley. Last season, the Wildcats were 5-5 away from Albany, but some of their biggest wins came on the road. They twice won at rival Florida, including the franchise’s first playoff victory.

Yet, it’s when the team can’t pull out the win, or even worse, plays bad in doing so, that these trips take an excruciating turn.

“After a loss, the game is racing through everybody’s mind,” Stingley said. “They don’t know how to react to us as a coaching staff, whether to laugh, be themselves or be happy coming back. A couple years ago, I dared them to laugh after a loss, now I have kind of let up a little bit.”

Defeat forces a team already on edge to deal directly with itself and those who may have been to blame for the defeat.

If a player blew a tackle or dropped a ball on the final play to determine the outcome, a steaming effect can create the longest ride of his life.

“You sit on the bus thinking, ‘They all think it is my fault. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry? How will I react?’ ” Stingley said.

Stingley admits no bus trip he’s on will ever divide a team.

“I won’t allow it,” he said.

But if the team wins, he won’t have to worry about it.

Little can bring teams together more than a celebratory return trip.

Players point to the ride back from a dramatic win against Tennessee Valley in the opener as one that brought the squad closer.

The drastic difference in enjoyment between victory and defeat on a long trip such as the 915 miles each way from Albany to Austin provides a motivation on the field no speech could create.

Indeed, bus trips in the af2 are accepted as a part of life. They may be long and unpredictable, but they leave an undeniable tread mark on the will of every player competing for a bottom bunk.

“Being on the bus in the af2, it makes you more hungry to move up,” said Woolridge, before pausing and cracking a smile and realizing he was about to spend almost 30 hours cramped on a bus.

“I’d rather be flyin’, though.”

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