High School football playoff travel horror stories

Speaking of Marquette (my alma mater), when I was in school, our conference included Alpena and Traverse City...so a 656-mile roundtrip for a pair of conference basketball games. We would leave Friday morning, play Friday night, travel to the second city, play at 1/2 p.m. and then drive home. The one positive? They brought the cheerleaders for the games...and we shared the same hotel. Not sure why the guys were so tired Saturday... LOL

 

Lee County, from the westernmost county in Virginia, once played a football playoff game at Tabb. That's 455 miles. To Chincoteague on the Eastern Shore? That's 575 miles, though Chincoteague's school is so small that the football team doesn't play in the district games and isn't eligible for the state playoffs.

 

In my mid-major basketball SID days, we would leave our campus at noon on Wednesday and drive six hours to a conference opponent. Play Thursday night and leave early Friday morning for our next game, a couple of hours away. Play there on Saturday night and the load up the bus and head all the way back home, getting to town sometime early Sunday morning, about the time the sun was coming up. Good times (not really).

 

That Region B was something else, and it's replacement isn't really any better. Last year, Bluestone had to travel to Nandua (Tuesday) on the Eastern Shore in the Regional, won, and then had to go to Robert E Lee (Thursday) in Staunton, two days later. After winning that game, Bluestone lost at Brunswick (Saturday) -- all of 45 minutes down the road.
The worst thing was that all results were foregone conclusions, barring a freak injury, or two.

 

Two local teams I used to cover played in a league where two of the members were 340 miles apart. Whenever Lee Vining and Baker played each other in something, it was usually a two-day affair.

 

Our coverage area sprawls, so teams can have an hour drive during the regular season (particularly with traffic!) But in general, New Jersey is similar to Rhode Island, particularly for football. With the added divisions this year, New Jersey will have 24 "state" football champions.

Volleyball, which has five champions (and eventually plays down to just one), can have multiple, two-hour, weeknight drives during the tournament because schools are paired solely by size with no further regional breakdown. Most other sports' tournaments start off divided by size and location.

 

Going off the path a bit...here is Northern Michigan hockey's next two sets of road games within their conference of the WCHA:
Nov. 21/22 - at Alaska (Anchorage)
Nov. 28/29 - at Alaska-Fairbanks

So, yup...NMU leaves Weds. and the "student-athletes" won't be home (or in class) until Dec. 1. I'm sure they may be able to remote in for class work, but seriously...they are gone two weeks-plus. Crazy! At least some of it is Thanksgiving time.

My neighbor was the team's athletic trainer. He got a new job at another school when the Alaska schools got added because he has a young daughter and didn't want to be gone all the time, especially in situations like that.

 

I covered that series. It was actually Game 1 Thursday night in Moss Point, Game 2 (and 3 if necessary) Saturday in Southaven.

The most amazing thing about that series was that Game 1 went 13 innings and Moss Point's Damarius Bilbo — who later went on to play quarterback at Georgia Tech — pitched all 13 innings. Every time someone tells me "this is the most amazing game I've ever seen!," I reference that game.

Tony Sipp, who now pitches for the Houston Astros, started (and lost) Game 2 for Moss Point. There was no Game 3; Southaven swept.

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I once rode a bus with a JuCo softball team from Gulfport, Mississippi, to Phoenix, Arizona, for the NJCAA World Series — 29-hour drive all in one shot.

The two drivers, the AD and I were the only men on the bus. I remember the AD saying at one point, "I thought I was in Groundhog Day. Every time I woke up I was on that damn bus."

This was in the days before debit cards became a thing, so the AD had to draw the players' meal money from accounting before we left. He was carrying around $5,000 in $5 bills.

 

Ah, ya gotta love da trips to da Yooperdome.

 

I used to think Boothville-Venice (southeastern tip of Louisiana) to Haynesville (northwestern corner of the state) was a long drive to make (407.7 miles). Then I moved to Florida and realized it's a good five hours from the western most point to the eastern most point and another eight hours down from there to the southern most point.

Luckily, Florida keeps the playoffs very regional until state. I think the longest trip I've made outside of state tournament was a little over 7 hours to Tampa.

 

that old region B in Virginia was something else. Previously, Va. had three classifications with four regions each. Now it's six classifications with two regions each. That makes for some very long trips come state playoffs. Two years ago, John Battle from Bristol made a 364 mile trip to Tappahannock to play Essex in a football semifinal. Last year in girls basketball, Colonial Beach went 385 miles to Wise for a semifinal contest.