With road trips, teams avoid air travel hassles

By Adam Titcher
Daily Bruin Contributor

In light of Sept. 11, people have become skeptical about flying.
While the football team still flies, most of UCLA’s sports
teams have hit the road, including men’s water polo.

The team has road tripped to Palo Alto twice in the last three
weeks and still has a probable bus trip to the Mountain Pacific
Sports Federation championship at Berkeley.

“Sure there is some fear going around,” head coach
Adam Krikorian said. “And to be honest, it is probably the
safest time to fly, but is it a major inconvenience for us as a
team.”

Instead of dealing with the endless hours spent waiting in
airports because of tightened security, the team found comfort in
its six-hour drive to the Bay Area.

“There were significant difficulties with flying at that
time,” UCLA associate athletic director Ken Weiner said.

“Our team took an opportunity and we’re
accommodating them with it,” Weiner continued.

With the schedule requiring no trips farther than the Bay Area,
air travel was never a major issue. In case the team was forced to
travel out of state, they would have opted for a plane. But for the
rest of the season, they plan to ride it out.

“At first I hated the idea about driving in a bus, but
after the NorCal tournament I really liked the idea,” junior
two-meter defenseman Matt Flesher said.

In their long journey, they looked to be victorious in the
NorCal tournament that took place Oct. 13-14. They took three wins,
but lost to Stanford in the title game.

During their ride home, one of the perks was tormenting the
freshmen players.

“It is great team-bonding to have the freshman sing in
front of us on a long trip,” Krikorian said. “To see
Brett Ormsby sing Kriss Kross was quite the spectacle.”

Ormsby and the rest of the freshmen enjoyed it too. Ormsby, a
driver, was happy to get the opportunity to solidify the
team’s unity ““ not to mention he prefers to drive
instead of fly.

With this new convenience, the team has eaten more often
together on the road, and can vouch that they have bonded.

For the past two weeks, the players have sat together at the
football games against California and Stanford.

Although both games were fun for the team, the bus rides home
differed. While the Bruins enjoyed their ride home from the Rose
Bowl, the trip from Palo Alto was depressing.

Before witnessing the dramatic football loss, the team suffered
their third loss to the Cardinal this season.

“Anytime you lose it is terrible coming home … either
way, flying or driving is rough,” Krikorian said. “It
is just miserable because the driver all of a sudden cannot drive.
It is just gas, break, gas, break.”

The Bruins will hope for a smoother ride back when they head to
Berkeley in a little over three weeks.