Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Thoughts From the Road
10/16/2012 12:00:00 AM | General
Oct. 16, 2012
When thinking of a blog post for today, I realized that I haven't really done a personal introduction. Officially, my job title is Media Relations Assistant. I came here from the lovely Bluegrass State, Kentucky, a trip of exactly 1,163 miles from my hometown of Maysville to the FAU campus. I am the lead SID for men's and women's golf, cross country, and swimming and diving, women's track and men's soccer. I started at FAU last December, and though I am in charge of these sports, I found myself working with many others as we overlapped in the seasons. For instance, last February, I traveled with (and broadcasted the games for) the baseball team when they swept Alabama, and in the first week of March, did the same thing with the softball team in Las Vegas.
Right now though, my cross country, swimming, golf and men's soccer seasons have started, I have also been given the responsibility of assisting with football. This weekend will mark the fifth road trip of the year I've taken with the team. I've found that this is a bit of a different animal than those previous road trips I was a part of.
First off, the sheer number of people on these trips is pretty staggering. We fill an entire plane, obviously, because of the amount of the people on the team plus the support staff. Personally, when I fly, I always request (or pay extra for) an exit row. It's hard to fold 6'8" into a regular seat. Now, unfortunately for me, there are guys that height and about twice my width, so this is out of the question.
We always fly in the night before, which usually involves sampling a bit of the local cuisine. In Franklin, Tennessee (to play Middle Tennessee), that meant going to a restaurant called Bunganut Pig. We heard live music, and I had steak biscuits, which is apparently a real thing. In Birmingham for the Alabama trip, it was seafood, and last weekend in Monroe, Louisiana, it was a shrimp po'boy. Also there, a nice man paid for our meals at another restaurant, and that night at "The Grove," their tailgate area, we were offered homemade gumbo despite being labeled as the enemy.
During the games themselves, I have the best seat in the house: the press box. If you follow our official twitter, @FAUOwlAthletics, that's me live-tweeting during the road games. I enjoy interacting with our followers almost as much as watching the games themselves. I also handle any questions about our team in the booth, whether it's pronunciations, stats, or anything that's happened on the field. After the games, it's time to write the recap and post it on our site.
There have been few drawbacks to these trips, I must say. Yes, we generally get back very late, or early, depending on your perspective (it was about 6:30 Sunday morning when I got to bed after the Monroe trip). But it's definitely been a blast, whether it's the food sampling, the live music, the people we've met and hung out with or the on-field action I get paid to watch.
It's definitely been a whirlwind 10-plus months, but I've enjoyed it every step of the way. And if you're following us on Twitter this Saturday when the football team plays South Alabama, be sure to give us a shoutout. Make sure you tag it #FAU, or tweet directly at me, @FAUOwlAthletics, and maybe, just maybe, I'll @ you back!
