Preparing for the long road
There’s a lot of preparation that comes before a two-week road trip.
And we’re not even talking about the actual practices for the Hawaii basketball team.
Think about this: Where will the team practice? Where will they eat? Where can they find a meeting room big enough to conduct daily study halls? What’s the best – and most affordable — way to get from Fresno, Calif., to Las Vegas?
Those are all questions Scott Fisher had to answer before the team’s final road trip of this season. The Warriors are scheduled to depart Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon for a two-week road trip that will include games at San Jose State and Fresno State this week, followed by the WAC Tournament at Las Vegas next week.
Fisher is the team’s director of basketball operations, and one of his duties is the coordination of road trips.
“A whole lot of preparation and a lot of phone calls,” Fisher said. “This one has been with me for a while … it’s been a pain, it really has. Especially going to California where the hotels are so expensive and you have to get a bus and plane flights and it all has to come together.”
It doesn’t help when the opposing teams are somewhat uncooperative. At San Jose State, for example, a practice gym will not be available to the Warriors until late on Wednesday night.
Instead of settling for the late-night practice, Fisher scrambled to book an earlier practice time at nearby Ohlone College.
“In Fresno, we’ll probably have to choose a different training venue because they have us late as well,” Fisher said. “It seems to be what teams kind of do to you when you go down there and nobody wants to let you in the main arena.”
He also had to find alternative practice sites in Las Vegas next week so the Warriors can get ready for the WAC Tournament. They will arrive in Las Vegas on Sunday, and most of the other teams will arrive on Tuesday.
Another difficult aspect of his travel coordination is finding restaurants that satisfy all the players and coaches.
“They’re actually pretty good about it – the players will eat just about anything,” he said. “It’s feeding them enough that’s the problem.”
It is also a sacrifice for Fisher because he often picks restaurants that he, personally, would not choose on his own. He’s a vegetarian.
I didn’t know the team had a coordinator to take care of all the other stuff that needs to be taken care of on a road trip. I thought the assistant coaches took care of the humbug things.