The players are still pumped, the students are doing what students do (what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas) and the boosters are liquored up (away from the students, of course – no alcohol with the students!). Your selection party was not on television unless you were one of the dream teams or a school that made the tournament either for the first time since it began in 1939 or since Eisenhower was President.
If you look carefully enough you may just see the team staff and administrators gather in a football like huddle, do a cheer and yell break. The work is just beginning and each disperses to do the jobs assigned prior to selection. The coaching staff immediately begins to scout their opponent and begin many nights with little sleep. Athletic Communications aid in the immediate interviews and schedule more in depth ones for the next few days. No matter what level conference (mid-major or power) the Athletic Communications staff can turn the media circus into a media ballet, finely choreographed and expertly timed.
The administrative staff must determine the travel date or dates. Each team must be at the competition site by at least a full day before their game. Often when a team is traveling over a certain distance they are able to get a waiver to travel a day early. When this happens the non-basketball staff usually travels a day later. Schools have a choice of traveling coach or chartering a plane. The “big guys” may even have their own plane but we won’t let jealousy get in the middle of our discussion here.
If a team is secure in their selection (“big guys” again) or received an automatic qualifier they can pre-register their travel party at a secure site with Shorts Travel, the agency who does all of the travel for the tournament. This way, when the brackets are announced they don’t have to scramble for names and dates. When Canisius College went to the tournament in 1996 I worked until about 3:00am in our office sending and receiving faxes from the travel agency. Back then we did not have automated systems but we also did not have to deal with post 911 issues, either. If you really want to know about the rules of team travel here is a tiny URL that leads to a public part of the NCAA site http://tinyurl.com/ykffx6q.
The biggest surprise, however, during that whole 3:00am adrenaline rush work session was the fax we received charging us for 300 single session tickets. We got a bill for over $10,000 as a “welcome to the tournament” gift. A team like Duke needs 100’s or 1,000’s more. A team like Canisius College wonders what the heck you do with 300 tickets at a site nearly 1,400 miles from home. In the next segment of my blog I will talk about that block of 300 tickets.
Once the number of travel days was established it was my job to calculate how much it would cost to feed everyone in the travel party. I talked about planning for success http://tinyurl.com/yj8t4qs a few weeks back. In the case of the tournament I planned the per diem meal expense as if we won the first game and were staying the whole weekend. There is no point talking about David and Goliath here but suffice to say, we traveled home the day after the first round.
I literally had a brief case filled with money precisely counted and in marked envelopes. Each member of the travel party would receive an envelope through the first game and the remainder would be in the hotel safe. The Director of Public Safety was my bodyguard. It was a very interesting experience which I would welcome the opportunity to do again.
Flight lists, rooming lists and ground transportation were settled and booked. It was time to pack and get ready to go to the dance.
Coming next: We Made It – what it is like when you arrive at the site
Coming after: What About All of that Money We Were Supposed to Make?
See also: Life of an NCAA Team Host: http://tinyurl.com/yhk9bvq
Party of 75: http://tinyurl.com/yjprbq6
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
