From the Sideline — Sometimes Travel Can Be Dicey

Many people say Alabama was really lucky Saturday.

I probably wouldn’t disagree with that assessment. Clearly, the Tide overcame some major mistakes and was able to hang on for a 14-13 win at Arkansas.

I was pretty lucky just to get there.

I didn’t travel to Fayetteville last Friday like the majority of the Crimson Tide Sports Network crew because of another assignment. For the past several years, I have done the play-by-play for high school football games on My 68 in Birmingham. In most of the previous years, our games took place on Thursday nights. Thankfully, this season, we now have a better selection of games with a Friday schedule.

The one downside of that change is that it can make travel for my Alabama games a little dicey. Such was the case last weekend.

Friday night I was scheduled to do the play-by-play for a Class 7A matchup between Spain Park and Vestavia Hills. I say “scheduled”, because the weather did not cooperate. The game never got started because of lightning and eventually heavy rain.

Once the weather eased up enough to walk to my car around 9:30, I found a note on my window informing me I had a flat rear tire. I owe a big thank you to whoever left the note, because I would have likely not seen it until the next morning.

And therein lies another issue: “the next morning” arrived at 3 am, thanks to a 5:30 flight.

Thankfully, I got to a gas station and filled up the tire with no further issues.

In my opinion, 4:30 is way too early to be anywhere – and that especially goes for the airport. At this point, though, it becomes a quest – not just a trip.

I booked my flight several weeks ago. I intentionally went with the early departure, just in case the Alabama/Arkansas game kicked at either 11 or 2:30. I knew that even with the earliest kickoff time, I could arrive at 9 and make it by the start of the game.

That is assuming everything goes just right – which is an extreme rarity when it comes to air travel. Thankfully, my flight left on time. My connecting flight was waiting when I got to Atlanta. I made it to that connection with 20 minutes to spare. And we had no issues landing in Northwest Arkansas, despite heavy fog and steady rain.

My return flight Sunday morning left at 6am, and I was again fortunate to have no delays on the route back home.

Seeing the airport at 5 on consecutive days makes for a long weekend. However, that’s easily the toughest part of my job.

I remind people all of time that what I do for a living isn’t work. Getting to the games can be, but to watch games, tell people what’s happening, and refer to that as “work” would be unfair to those who do.

One other note…

At one point late in the 1^st, or early in the 2^nd quarter Saturday, I turned to someone next to me on the sideline and said “We are going to win this game 7-3, and JK Scott is going to be our MVP.”

I was off on the final score, but I think I nailed it on Scott’s importance.

Not only was the freshman recognized by Nick Saban and his coaching staff Monday as a player of the week, Scott was also named the Ray Guy Award National Punter of the Week.

A native of Denver, CO, Scott averaged 44.2 yards on eight punts, and he pinned Arkansas inside their own 20-yard line seven times.