HONOLULU — North Dakota State has spent nine months prepping and fretting, in head coach Tim Polasek’s case, for a 3,800-mile flight to Honolulu to play Hawaii. It’s a pain in the keister, no doubt. The Bison’s direct charter flight from Fargo to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport will take 8½ long hours. Pro tip: Hydrate and walk the aisles, gentlemen.
The question was asked at the Rainbow Warriors’ media availability this week at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex, “You guys are flying to the mainland six times this season. How do you handle it, considering the other Mountain West Conference teams freak out about flying here once?”
It is true. Hawaii will fly to the contiguous 48 states for games at Stanford, Wyoming, Arizona State, Northern Illinois, UTEP and Nevada.
The Rainbow Warriors host the Bison on Saturday night coming off back-to-back flights to DeKalb, Illinois, and El Paso (both victories, by the way) that clocked in at about 14,800 air miles round trip.
Hawaii will fly a shade over 37,000 miles this season, according to the Action Network, a sports and gambling web site.
“It’s like no other,” Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang said after his team’s morning practice Tuesday. “For us, it’s a challenge and it’s going to be a challenge for teams that come over. But at the end of the day, it’s football. You roll it out there and the guys will have to be ready to play and that’s what it is.”
The concern for Polasek and NDSU — and it’s completely legitimate — is the time spent cramped in an airplane at 32,000 feet, the four-hour time change from Central to Hawaiian and the weird travel schedule as opposed to even a “normal” trip to Las Vegas.
Put it this way, when former NDSU and Wyoming coach Craig Bohl was visiting Fargo during spring practice and spent time chatting with Fargo media, he referred to the Hawaii trip as “a death march.” He said his athletic director could never understand why Bohl was so relieved when Wyoming won at Hawaii. Bohl would tell Tom Burman, “Because it’s tough from the travel.”
Multiply it by six and you have Hawaii’s season.
Mike McFeely / The Forum
“To be quite honest, I don’t know if you could get used to it, but I think at this point now we just understand what it takes and and at the end of the day you gotta play,” said Hawaii senior linebacker Jamih Otis. “The pads gotta come on, the helmets gotta come on, the cleats gotta go on. So at the end of the day, it’s just football. Playing a sport you love. The time change does make a difference, but either you want it or you don’t. That’s kind of our mindset.”
Northern Illinois remains the only winless team in FBS at 0-9 and UTEP isn’t far behind at 1-8, who we’re not talking about Mountain West powerhouses, but Hawaii put 56 points on the Huskies and grinded out a 17-14 victory over the Miners. The Rainbow Warriors won their two toughest league road trips, both new to the program.
Hawaii is expecting a near-sellout crowd at its 15,000-seat home stadium — its allegedly temporary home until the now-razed Aloha Stadium can be replaced — and the first 3,000 fans get a mini-bobblehead of Chang, who was a record-setting quarterback for the Rainbow Warriors from 2000 to 2004.
Mike McFeely / The Forum
Chang was unfazed when asked about it.
“This is my second bobblehead. I had one as a player and now they’ve honored me to have one as a coach,” Chang said.
Opinion: The first bobblehead wins the race. It was a full-sized deal with no helmet, featuring a smiling Chang, while the second one is considerably smaller.
Mike McFeely / The Forum
That’s the least of the head coach’s concerns. His 3-6 team is facing the 7-2 Bison, who have plenty for which to play with a berth in the Mountain West Conference championship game still possible and, at the least, a berth in a bowl game not located in Boise, Idaho, at stake.
Then there’s all those frequent flyer miles the Rainbow Warriors have stacked up.
“It’s definitely a mindset thing,” said Hawaii receiver Titan Lacaden. “I take my hat off to coach Bobby Thomas (the director of sports performance) because BT does a great job preparing us, allowing us to prep with just the right things throughout the week like hydrating, being able to stretch, being able to keep our body healthy, getting enough sleep in the beginning of the week so that when we transition into a different time zone, it’s just a little bit easier for us to get to bed and wake up the next day at the right time.
“He does a great job and I think that’s the biggest thing for them coming out here to our own backyard. I’ll tell you this, it’s 10 hours, your back will be aching. It’s not an easy flight. I wish them the best.”
Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while he was a student studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He’s been with The Forum full time since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk-show.
Source: www.inforum.com
