“Coach, why don’t we ever play any tournaments out west?” My response is always quick and to the point, “because it is too hard to get to!” I gave in and decided to try something new.
Last week we packed our bags for Arizona, where one of our Big Ten rival schools happened to be hosting a tournament. We decided to fly Southwest, which we never do, since they offered a direct flight from BWI, both ways, that would still get us back in time for classes. We are not allowed to miss more than eight days of class time in a semester.
The first order of business when you fly Southwest, for those of you that do know, is to be sitting by your computer at exactly 24 hours prior to your flight departure to secure your place in line, so when you board the plane you can snag the best seat. That is if you get a good “placement” and we were lucky to get through among the hundred other passengers logging in at the exact same time. A little like that game you played when you were young, “musical chairs”. Be quick or you will be caught in the middle seat! I personally find this ritual that the loyal Southwest flyers seem to regard as “normal” a bit of an inconvenience or less politely a pain in the butt!
The trip began with a three-hour van ride to BWI airport that started after classes of course. Traveling toward the city on a Friday can be stressful but we arrived with time to spare. Checking in was so smooth and we did not have to pay for any of our luggage! I guess the commercials are right, “bags fly free”! Maybe I will like this airline after all. On the way to our gate, we heard our flight would be delayed one hour because they could not find our pilot! After hearing that I wasn’t sure I wanted them to find this person, where could they be? We boarded the plane, happy that we were finally going to be on our way, when the pilot came over the speaker to alert us that our flight may take an extra hour once airborne due to the strong headwinds we were facing. Still, I was thankful for the two-hour time difference (in our favor) we would experience once we landed. Our flight would get in at 2 a.m. not 4 a.m. eastern standard time. However, when we did finally land in Phoenix, all the gates had been filled, due to having diverted planes heading to Los Angles on account of bad weather. We waited almost thirty minutes for them to move a…
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