2024 College Sports Travel - Our Forebears Have Been There, Done That

[Jon Joseph]

Back in the day, 1936, it took 3 days by train for the Minnesota Gophers and their fans to reach Seattle to play Washington to open the season. And it was an eventful journey.

 

Going West: The Great Gopher Hotel Fire Story #TBT

WWW.THEDAILYGOPHER.COM

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Sometimes the journey is harder than the game.

 

That's a six-day round trip for the student-athletes, plus a day to play the game. The was very little, if any concern over the on-campus school days missed and whether or not the athletes would be traumatized by all of this travel. These were tough people who had grown up in tough times. No one expected that anything would be easy.

 

During its championship run, the Gophers traveled everywhere by train, including a round trip to New Orleans to play Tulane. Amtrack estimates today's train trip from Minneapolis to Columbus, Ohio, takes 28 hours and 24 minutes. The trip was undoubtedly longer back in the day but I guess that the trains were a lot cleaner and the onboard service was better, including the food. 

 

Six days round trip plus game day was also the time it took for USC to travel to and from South Bend. Indiana and for the Irish to travel to Los Angeles. The Irish travel party, with 36 players, a Doctor, a trainer, and three coaches, was accompanied by not fewer than 500 Irish fans following along on three or more trains. The trip, as did Minnesota's trip to the West Coast to play Washington, required changing trains three times as no single carrier offered a direct route.

 

It was not just the football teams that had to make long trips. 78 years ago, the Oregon Webfoots, 'The Tall Firs,' won the first NCAA basketball title. Oregon traveled from Eugene to Chicago by train and defeated Ohio State 46-33 on the home court of Northwestern University located in Evanston, Illinois. Today, men's and women's basketball players travel hither and yon for regular season and tournament games.

 

The College World Series (CWS) was first contested in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1950, the CWS moved to its permanent home in Omaha, Nebraska. The 64-team CWS field has teams playing all across the country before the final eight move on to Omaha. This is when school is in session for the majority of the athletes. The same type of travel is required for the majority of NCAA championship events. From track and field to field hockey. 

 

No student-athletes have endured travel more than have Pac-12 student-athletes during the 109 years of the Pac-12's existence. The distance from Seattle to Tucson is 1,526 miles. The distance from Boston to Miami is 1,497 miles. And Oregon and Washington joining the B1G along with UCLA and USC will cut down on travel for all sports for every B1G team. And the B1G powers-that-be will do everything they can to limit travel, especially for the West Coast and East Coast schools. 

 

There is a tendency in today's wired world to ignore history. There is a tendency in today's world for people to believe that in this day and age of Airplane Conferences, "kids" are being asked to experience travel that no student-athletes have ever faced and endured. Rubbish. And unlike the 'good old days,' student-athletes laptops allow young men and women to take school on the road. And travel via air is a heck of a lot easier than taking the train or the bus.

 

[Hypocrite Alert! I cop to being one of the many who chortled over the UCLA and USC travel demands. As much out of envy as anything. Puddles will be flying more B1G miles but a school that aspires to championships in all sports has to have the money to compete. Come 2031, Puddles will be rolling in dough.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Jon Joseph

[HDuck]

As one of the UO staffers commented a few days ago, the travel requirements for the Big Ten do not apply to all sports equally.

 

Some, like basketball for men and women, will require several trips.  Others, like golf, may require one trip per year, if that, because there is no home-and-home schedule in golf and they generally face other conference programs in tournaments at neutral sites.

 

Some sports have no participation by Big Ten teams, and vice versa.  Oregon, for example, has no wrestling team.  The Big has no beach volleyball.   And, so forth.

 

Somewhat ironically, the Title IX requirements resulted in more women's sports which will mean there will likely be more travel required for women athletes than men as various colleges in both conferences have added women sports.  There are more women's teams, than men's teams, due to the "equivalence" required by the size of a football roster.

 

Finally, as was alluded when UCLA/USC joined, the B1G will look at ways to minimize travel by pairing teams geographically as was the case previously in the Pac12 (but not in the B1G).  And, perhaps considering "tournament type play" at some sites.

 

Yes, there will be travel longer distances, but it does not apply to every athlete in every sport.