We got to the airport in the morning and I was honestly sad to leave Oregon, I had really grown to like the place, but also wanted to get back for the Vandy-UT football game that night. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5:45, but shortly after we got the airport, I noticed the flight had been delayed. I told Coach Frederick, who is the point man on all travel, and he was concerned because we had to catch a connecting flight later on. As he went to talk to the desk clerk, they announced the flight had been cancelled because the flight attendant was sick. Everybody was PISSED, and I was particularly devastated because it meant we would not get back in time for the football game.
I was upset they didn't have a backup flight attendant at the airport, and thought it was a BS excuse for a flight not to take off. I thought about suggesting that they hire our secretary Miss Debbie as a temporary replacement. Miss Debbie is very matronly and friendly and I thought she had the capability to do a nice job, but then I remembered there would be Oregon fans on the flight and Miss Debbie might have difficulty serving them. Miss Debbie has a firm policy that no fan of an opposing team will be allowed to receive tickets from any member of our team: players, staff, or coaches, and if she had to treat Oregon fans the same way she treated us, I'm not sure she could have handled it, so I backed off the potential suggestion.
Head manager Rob Cross then suggested that we get the Oregon cheerleaders to each adopt a Dore, so I tweeted, "
My third suggestion was reaching out to Phil Knight. I think in our 30 second interaction the previous night we had established a real repoire. Vandy after all is a Nike school and Phil Knight owns Nike, and was in Eugene so why not enlist his help. I tweeted this, hoping to catch someone's eye, "Phil Knight is in Eugene. We are a Nike team. Not sure why we arent calling him
My tweets for help were not being received by the broader community. I started getting restless so I went on LinkedIn to pass the time. Yes, that LinkedIn. The site where you try to promote yourself to employers and kiss ass to other networkers. That was how I was spending my time, and this was only like 6:30 AM. My day was just getting started.
Ultimately, Coach Fred made the decision that we should bus to Portland 2 hours away so that there would be more flight options out of there than there were in Eugene. So at 7:00 AM we boarded the bus for Portland. For the first hour and a half of the bus ride, I and everybody else was knocked out. Everybody was exhausted. I slept like a baby, but when I woke up I had to use the bathroom to pee. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but I have a lot of trouble urinating on a moving vehicle, it is just very hard to stabilize myself and I get quite gun shy, so after 5 minutes in the crammed stall, I just gave up.
So upon arriving at the airport I sprinted inside to use the bathroom because I was too traumatized to use the bus one even though we had stopped moving. When we got inside, Coach Fred had booked the team on a 12:30 Pacific Time flight out of Portland to Las Vegas with a connection to Nashville, that would bring us back there at around 9:30. The only problem was that this flight only had 26 available seats and there were 30 members of our traveling party. As I mentioned in this post, my place and the place of managers in the program is quite tenuous, so I knew some of us would be left behind, the question was who.
As the players and coaches got their tickets, myself, the other 5 managers, and Coach Turner were left at the ticket counter with Coach Fred to find out our fate. I thought that maybe my seniority would have bumped me onto the regular flight, but I couldn't be sure. Freshman manager Zach Kleiner found out his fate before me and when he went to the counter his name was not on the ticket list, I immediately shouted, "Haha!! Karma's a b*tch!!" assuming that his not being on the flight meant I had made it. I was so ecstatic because I hate airports. They are dirty, crowded, and everything there is overpriced. They disgust me and I hate waiting in them.
After Zach went to the counter and his name wasn't on the list, I went up fully expecting my name to be on there. However, I told them my name "Daniel Marks" and she said "I don't see your name on this list". Zach immediately shouted "Karma's a b*itch" and I went into a faux-rage half produced by anxiety and half by exhaustion. I was furious and I stormed off to a bench area at the other side of the waiting area to sit by myself. I needed time to gather my thoughts and figure out my next move, but this decision to isolate myself from the group came back to haunt me.
While I was staring listlessly into the abyss, another seat on the flight opened up and it was given to Zach, primarily because he was going home for Thanksgiving the next day so he had a flight to catch, but I still wasn't pleased. So when it was all said and done our two freshmen managers, Brian and Zach, along with our head manager Rob Cross, got onto the team flight while fellow managers Rafi, Nick, and then Coach T were left behind with me. It was a motley crew of people on the fringe of the program's existence.
Once it was determined that the four of us were to be left behind, Coach Fred gave us some options about flights. There was a 6:30 flight leaving from Portland to Los Angeles, another one later, and then we could stay overnight in Portland as our last option. Despite having no clean clothes, I wanted to stay in Portland for the day because I had never seen the city or go back to Eugene for the Stanford-Oregon game, but my comrades wanted in on the 6:30 flight to get back as soon as possible, so we got that. Rob Cross, our head manager, was freaking out about the possibility of being the only manager at practice if we stayed later so he insisted on the earliest flight as well but his opinion meant nothing to us. He was on the flight, the four of us couldn't give two shits what he thought at that given moment. This happened at about 10:30 AM.
When all that was decided, I was planning my next move. I tweeted at Blazers' rookie sensation Damian Lillard seeing if he wanted to chill for the day and didn't get a response. Then I tweeted this, "Didn't make cut for 1225 flight out of Portland. Have submitted my withdrawal papers from Vandy
When I tweeted that, one of our walk-ons Nate Watkins Retweeted it. I was pissed, here Nate was on the regular flight RT'ing me about starting a new life, like he thought it was a joke. It wasn't and I responded to his ignorance with this, "As I sit here at the check in counter pondering my next life move,
Once I got over Nate tweeting me from the other side of the security line, I decided I needed to leave the airport. I couldn't spend all day there so after receiving some cash from Coach Fred, I decided I was going to take a cab to the Rose Garden, home of the Trailblazers, and hopefully meet some NBA person who might consider giving me a job. I got in the cab and it was a 20 minute ride in pretty heavy rain and the cab cost $40 but that was irrelevant at the time. I was determined to meet somebody. Anybody.
I arrived at the Rose Garden and there was an auxiliary building with offices that was locked and I started walking around the arena aimlessly with my duffel bag. My shoulder was killing me and I began to realize the plan was hopeless so I had a homeless guy take a photo of me in the rain with the Rose Garden marquee. I then sent the photo to every NBA contact I had hoping one of them could put me in touch with someone from the Blazers who might be willing to meet with me. I got a response from one of my contacts that their practice facility and team offices were 45 minutes in the other direction and he could call the Assistant GM if I wanted him to. I said sure why not.
Then Nick Souder called me and said there was a chance we could catch a 12:45 flight so I hopped in a cab immediately and tried to race back to the airport because it was now 11:45 and I got to the airport at 12:15 but that other flight plan fell through, so we were stuck in the airport till our 6:30 flight. We made a nice home for ourselves in the corner of an overpriced pizza joint known as Mia Mozzarella.
Coach T ordered a few slices of mediocre tasting pizza as I tried to arrange a meeting with the Blazers Assistant GM. We ended up connecting on the phone but were unable to meet. At about 1:00 I passed out on one of the tables at Mia, while Nick Souder also passed out on another table, and Rafi read a book. Coach T was either reading some strength and conditioning print out or bidding on folk art, I can't remember which one.
I napped for about an hour then woke up and got a triple cheeseburger at Wendy's with a root beer frosty float. Yeah, I was worried about the possibility of stomach issues in the air, but at that point I just didn't care. I was eating and eating what I wanted and I wanted Wendy's. Meanwhile back at our temporary home at Mia, Coach T requested they put on the USC-UCLA football game and they asked if we had ordered any food so Coach T ordered another mediocre slice from them.
We then watched mediocre football while eating mediocre food for awhile, lamenting our collective fate and pondering if anybody would care if we never made it back. I texted about 7 friends, 4 of whom I don't even really like, and got one response. I was gunning for conversation like Marshall Henderson on a White Girl Wednesday.
Then me and Nick Souder went to the ticket counter around 4:00 to see when we could go through security for our 6:30 flight at which point the ticket lady informed us the time on the ticket was wrong, our flight was actually at 5:20. At this point, we really thought it was our fate not to go back to Nashville. A collective destiny of Commodore rejects. The possibilities for our future lives were endless.
At around 4:15 we said farewell to Mia and went through security. When we got through the security line there were so many flights we were tempted to get on. There was the one to Hawaii or the one to Alaska, offering unprecedented opportunities for the four of us. At this point we were so disillusioned with the thought of Nashville, we were willing to go anywhere. Ultimately we boarded the flight to LA as none of us had the balls to stick it to the man and venture elsewhere in the world.
I lamented that we were going back to Nashville but wouldn't be able to go to the Vandy-UT game, and Nick responded, "I remember when we thought we'd be at the game" to which Rafi retorted, "Yeah when we woke up this morning". That about summed up our day. I passed out on the flight to LA and woke up elated to see we had beat UT 41-18. When we got off the plane in LA, we watched the end of Oregon-Stanford before we had to take a bus to a different terminal
When we got to this new terminal the dining options were limited but there was a Chili's Too. Chili's has a location on West End right across from campus and because of that I have eaten an inordinate amount of Chili's over the last four years. I'm really sick of the establishment, but at that time Chili's was like Ruth Chris. I got some type of quesadilla and felt some sort of nirvana go through me, it was an out of body experience that I never thought I'd have at a Chili's too, but I did. I actually liked my meal at Chili's, weird things happen when you're stranded.
After the meal at Chili's we killed more time in the terminal then boarded the flight to Nashville. I passed out the whole time and woke up with a terribly sore throat. So when we got to Nashville I needed Starbucks, I waited 15 minutes at 5 AM for a caramel apple cider while the other three got the bags. Then we got into Nick's car, which Rob was driving and headed back to campus. I took a shower then decided to clean the kitchen because I was tired of it being dirty before I passed out into the abyss, 24 hours after the journey had begun.
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