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Last Updated: Dec 25, 2008 - 10:51:15 AM |
Christmas is a time of the year for me that brings back special memories of the past. Christmas in California when I was eleven, meeting my Grandfather for the first time, or driving the streets looking at the light displays with my parents on Christmas Eve, knowing when we returned, Santa would have made his visit, or spending the holiday with college teammates in a hotel restaurant preparing to play in a holiday tournament. These moments and many more are always remembered fondly at this time of year.
I do have one Christmas experience however that I wouldn’t necessarily want to repeat and is not fondly recalled, though with the perspective of time, is pretty funny. Officiating Division I college basketball was an avocation I enjoyed for 15 seasons. I did not however enjoy the air travel during the winter months that was a necessary element of working basketball games at schools located many hundreds of miles from Iowa. Fortunately, for the first six or seven years, I got lucky and never experienced a departure that was delayed by weather. That all changed one cold December in the late 90’s.
When the officiating contracts from the Big Ten came out prior to that season, one of my assignments was to referee at the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico. Seven teams from the continental United States along with the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez were invited to the tournament that was to be played on December 21, 22 and 23. The conference of each participating team assigned an official to work the games. The University of Iowa was one of the teams playing in the tourney and I was assigned as the representative of the Big Ten with one referee each from Conference USA (Southern Mississippi), the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (Loyola-Chicago), the Atlantic Ten Conference (St. Bonaventure), the Southern Conference (Furman University), the Ohio Valley Conference (Tennessee Tech) and independent Oral Roberts University.
Each referee worked two games on each of the tournament’s three days. The finals of the Shootout were scheduled for the evening of the 23rd and with my departure from San Juan on Christmas Eve day and arrival at the Cedar Rapids airport at 4 pm, I thought my plans for Christmas Eve with my family would not have to be changed. So much for plans.
My departing flight, which I shared with the Iowa team and traveling party, left San Juan as scheduled, nonstop to Chicago-O’Hare, where a change of planes and subsequent arrival at 4 p.m in Cedar Rapids was on the itinerary. Eighty-two sunny degrees in San Juan very quickly changed to a 12-inch snow storm and flight delays upon our landing in Chicago. The sudden prospect of spending Christmas Eve in an airport was a likely possibility. Iowa Coach Tom Davis, when learning that the only flight likely to depart that night for Cedar Rapids at 9pm was full, ordered a University of Iowa Cambus to come to Chicago to pick up the team and return them to Iowa City. Meanwhile, at the airline ticket counter, I was frustrated to learn that the next available flight to C.R. was scheduled to depart at 10 a.m. Christmas morning. I mournfully booked my seat on that flight and departed for the terminal for a long night in a lounge chair. It was then that I met up with Bobby Hansen, Iowa’s radio color commentator, who was just leaving another line at the counter, having been given the same sad news. While we walked through the concourse, I recognized a Chicago Police Officer working the airport that I was acquainted with, and stopped to say hello. After I recounting our plight, he asked why we didn’t go back on the 9 p.m. flight. I told him it was full to which he replied “we’ll see about that!”. He asked for our tickets and walked over to the ticketing agent, where he engaged in a short animated discussion. The agent then punched a few keys on the computer and handed the officer two boarding passes. The officer returned to where we were standing, and handed us our tickets and new boarding passes to the previously full 9 p.m. flight. Astonished, I asked him how he managed to pull that one off, to which he replied, “this is Chicago, you don’t want to know.”
While heading for our flight’s boarding area and a “short” four hour wait, we ran into Coach Davis who offered us a ride with the team on the Cambus which he said would probably arrive around 9 p.m. and would depart for Iowa shortly thereafter from the American Airlines concourse. We politely declined, advising the Coach that we were fortunate enough to get a flight at 9 p.m. The rest of the wait and boarding of the aircraft were uneventful, but the rest of the night was far from being so .
The flight traversed O’Hare’s taxiways enroute to the runway for what seemed like 30 minutes. As the turboprop finally increased power to it’s engines at the end of the runway just prior to takeoff, the pilot suddenly shut down the engines and announced that the plane would be returning to the terminal due to mechanical problems. The flight was canceled. Our last hope for avoiding Christmas in O’Hare was suddenly dashed. As the plane taxied back to the terminal, Bobby noticed that the Cambus from Iowa City was still parked in front of the building and wondered if we might still be able to hitch a ride back to Iowa. After deplaning, we sprinted nearly a quarter of a mile through the crowded halls of O’Hare, only to arrive at the doors to observe the bus on the move a block down the street. But our luck held this time, we ran down the sidewalk and with the assistance of an unusually long traffic light, caught up to the bus and gratefully accepted a surprised Coach Davis’ offer of a seat on the bus.
Snow covered roads turned the normal short four-hour commute to Iowa City into a cold, slippery seven-hour ordeal on a bus meant for short city hops and a poor heater, especially for myself, having gotten dressed in preparation for a flight where I wouldn’t be required to step outdoors until arriving in Iowa, only added to the ordeal. We finally arrived at Carver-Hawkeye Arena at 5 a.m. Christmas morning, chilled to the bone but happy to be almost home. Fortunately, two off-duty flight attendants had also hitched a ride with us on the bus, one whose father drove down from Cedar Rapids and gave Gary Dolphin, Bobby Hansen, myself and four others (in a 6 passenger van) a lift to the Cedar Rapids Airport and our snow-covered cars. Our Christmas ordeal was finally at an end. We gratefully arrived in Cedar Rapids 14 hours later than we had planned, but nonetheless in time to spend the holiday with our families. Ironically, our luggage beat us back, having been loaded on a midnight cargo flight to Cedar Rapids.
Though not the Christmas experience I had planned, the memory of that convoluted trip will always keep me appreciative of the quiet Christmas Eves spent at home surrounded by family. All’s Well that Ends Well.
Merry Christmas to all of you, and thank you for spending time reminiscing with me.
Send your questions to ref@eiherald.com or write to P.O. Box 336, Victor, IA, 52347.
© Copyright 2008 by The East Iowa Herald
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Skies: PtcldyTemperature: 79F 26CDewpoint: 63F 17CRelative Humidity: 57%Wind: E at 3m - 5kBarometric Pressure: 30.08SUpdated: 10:02:49 PM
