May 13, 11:45 am MDT - Working Hard

Had some breakfast around 8:45 this morning, then I have been working on the Daktronics All-Region team that was announced this morning. Congrats Derek West and Andrew Kinney, first team honorees and Adam Schrader named second team.

Here are a few pics from the trip. Just two so far. One from the bus, minutes from leaving Marshall and the other is the view outside our hotel rooms.

The boys just had lunch at Taco Bell and are now relaxing before heading to practice at 1 pm.

The weather is great!

May 13, 8:30 am MDT - Clifton, Colo.

We made it! Finally, I can update this blog without holding my labtop top on my lap, moving down the highway at 70 mph. The bus made it to Clifton, Colo., our team headquarters at 12:15 a.m. MDT. We are staying at a Best Western. Nice hotel, lots of places to eat around the hotel which is always important.

It is now 8:30 am, my roomies, coach Blanchard and coach Nikkel are still asleep. But as I type, coach Blanchard is now up and heading down to breakfast. It is just perfect outside as our hotel door opens to the north. It is suppose to be a great week of weather and right now it is. Sunny skies, temp around 70 and no wind!

The guys will be getting up around 10 am, will walk around a bit to get loose, eat, etc. Then we have an official work out later this afternoon.

I of course will get my daily jog in, maybe a short "lift" at the workout facility in the hotel and then eat egg whites with bananas for breakfast.....Yeah right.

As I do every morning, I read every daily newspaper that I can on-line (this part is true) to keep up with what's happening around the region in sports and news.

FYI, director of athletics Chris Hmielewski is flying in today to Grand Junction. Something about having to work on Tuesday so he had to fly. He is flying in from Omaha to G.J. We'll see what happens, I may fly back with him when we are finished here. Hopefully not until Sunday!

Have a good morning everyone! Until next time...., coach Nikkel is still getting his “beauty” sleep. Oh wait, he is getting up…no I guess just talking in his sleep. Something about, “I love shooting pheasants”… “no I don’t have a razor, quit asking” … and something really weird, he is mumbling “go Tracy Express…choo, choo”. More on that later! I need to type softer; I don’t want to wake him!

Mesa State College, the host school, has a car for every team. So that will be nice to have some transportation around the area.

Have a good morning Mustangs fans! Until next time, remember 2:30 CDT tomorrow. SMSU versus Minnesota State, Mankato. Live stat will be available. Click on the baseball regional Web site on the right side of the SMSU baseball page.

Peace out!

May 12 - 11:20 pm MDT - We There Yet?

Good evening or should I say good morning Mustang fans. We are getting closer to Grand Junction. We've had a long but smooth trip so far as we close in on our destination. We stopped in a suburb of Denver for supper at Golden Corral around 7:15 and ate WAY too much. By the way, we had no plans on where to eat, but with the use of my Garmin, we searched and found the restaurant. What a great invention. Because with out the GPS, there is no way we could’ve found a buffet in Denver J . But really, it did help. Are you listening, the owners of Garmin? I could be used as a salesman for your company.

After supper, we loaded up and continued west through the mountains to the big G.J. Our Southwest Coaches bus made it up and down through the mountains just fine. Too bad it was dusk out and we didn’t have a real good luck at the mountains. It seemed nice looking out the windows at nothing but darkness.

We watched Grandma’s Boy and now have Anchorman on as we close the night out. I just woke up around 11 pm MDT from a long-hard nap. The trip is starting to get to me. I believe we are getting closer and should be pulling into town soon. We’ve been on the road for over 18 hours now after leaving Marshall at 6 am.

The weather is just terrific out here. The forecast is 83 degrees and sunny on game day Thursday afternoon!

Tomorrow the guys will sleep in and we have practice at the field. I’ll have much more to report once we check in tonight/tomorrow.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I’ve had several requests for “shout outs” by people. I’ll do my best to get you some “love”.

As Ron Burgundy says, “Stay classy Mustang fans!!”

May 12, 4:50 pm MDT - Rocky Mountain High

Good afternoon everyone, we have now crossed into the state of Colorado. Since we last chatted, we had just left Yankton, S.D. We headed south to Norfolk, Neb., then hooked up with I 80 in Grand Island, Neb. and headed towards Colorado. Stopped at a truck stop somewhere in Nebraska and picked up some goodies to snack on.

Movie update. We watched The Guardian (sorry to admit), 3:10 to Yuma and now Mighty Ducks is on. I didn't watch any. I moved to the back of the bus and had a nice chat with some of the boys. Good times talking about baseball, life and much more. I then headed back to the front of the bus and I'm currently watching GoodFellas on my DVD. For some reason I've never seen the movie. I enjoy it. Love mob movies!

Our biggest decisions during the trip are where we'll be stopping to eat. We gained an hour (what a country) so we now an hour behind everyone in Marshall. We may now just head to Denver and then stop to eat.

Western Nebraska and eastern Colorado is not much too look at. I like the open spaces of the country. As always, this is a learning trip. These guys are in college and are always willing to learn. Just like I taught the basketball boys out east in Springfield, Mass., about Paul Revere running through the same streets that we were driving on, I’m now explaining how Lewis & Clark moved through this same area of country looking for a way to the Pacific Ocean (is that where they were going?). I’m not only a media relations guy, I’m also an educator.

Exciting times as we head towards Grand Junction. I’ve been with SMSU and Mustang baseball for 12 years. We’ve had some great teams, teams that were very close to making an NCAA regional tournament. 33 victories in 1998, winning the NSIC tournament in 1999 and 2002, but never could get in. I’ve covered hundreds and hundreds of games and put on thousands of hours of bus trips. But trips like this make it all worth it.

Not to get too sentimental, but it’s great to see our players come into the program, put in the hard work and get rewarded by making an NCAA tournament. This goes for all 11 SMSU athletic teams!

This year started out great in Florida, then we had 12 games canceled in late March and early April, then Coach Blanchard lost his father, but the month of April the team has played well and picked up big wins to gain an at-large bid. Great job boys!

I’ll have some pictures posted hopefully later tonight. It should be fun to drive through the Rocky Mountains. Let’s hope this is some sunlight left.

Take a look on the story on the Web site about game times. You’ll see a picture of the field we will play at. Great stadium and that’s what it is! 10,000 seat stadium. Grand Junction hosts the JUCO World Series every year. In fact, Coach Blanchard took his Normandale C.C. team to the World Series in Grand Junction in 1986. His brother also played at Mesa State.

One thing to point out, assistant coach Brandon Wilhelmi hasn’t seen a movie yet. I’m very proud that he is getting plenty of reading in. I think there are words in the magazines.

Until later tonight….Go Mustangs!

May 12 - 11:00 am

Good morning Mustangs fans! We are on our way to Grand Junction. The bus left Marshall at 6:07 am. Seven minutes late because of....me. Lots of packing for me, that's my excuse.

Most of the guys slept on our way to Sioux Falls. We stopped in Sioux Falls to pick up a couple of bats that needed replacing. Gotta have good lumber when the games start! We then continued south and then west through Vermillion and Yankton. We stopped at Hy-Vee in Yankton for breakfast and now we are just over the border in Nebraska as I write. A special thanks to Curtis Smith for letting me use his labtop to write this. I can't get connected on my labtop.

I have my Garmin connected and it says we should arrive in Grand Junction around 9:30 pm MDT. Not sure when we'll stop again to stretch or eat.

We have two bus drivers, Al and Dale. Good guys. They have a bed behind the front seat for them. Coach Petersen really wants to sleep on it and stretch out. He's trying to convince the driver to switch spots. Not going to happen I don't think.

So far we have watched Elf and Out Cold. Now we are watching My Best Friend's Girl with Dane Cook.

Until next time somewhere in western Nebraska...I'm out!

Monday, May 11 - 9:30 pm CDT

Grand Junction, Colorado, here we come! The Hey Loft is back after a nearly two-month layoff since Springfield, Mass., and the NCAA Elite Eight.

I hope you can follow the SMSU baseball journey to Colorado and SMSU makes its first-ever NCAA regional tournament appearance. Let me give you a quick update on the team's plans. We will be leaving Marshall at 6 am on Tuesday, May 12, and taking a bus the whole 16 hours! The team could've taken a plane, but the NCAA pays for only a certain number of individuals and since the SMSU coaching staff wants to bring everyone who has traveled all season (a nice decision), a bus is the best and most cost effective way to go.

As Clark Griswold says in the movie Vacation (my favorite comedy of all-time), "Come on Ellen, getting there is half the fun, you know that". We’ll see ☺….. Once we get close to Colorado I’ll be saying, “that John Denver is full……” (you have to know Dumb and Dumber to get that one)

I stopped by Video Central today on campus and picked up some movies for the team. I know the players will bring plenty as well, but I picked up some American classics...Grandma's Boy, College (of course both unrated) and for myself I picked up the series "The Shield". I've heard good things.

I also have the cribbage board, cards, etc. I plan on taking some small change from coach Nikkel on the way out.

The baseball team is the final SMSU athletics team still competing for the 2008-09 season. What a year it has been for Mustang athletics. SMSU competes in 10 NCAA sports and six of our teams competed in NCAA Tournaments, while the wheelchair team also advanced to the national tournament! Congrats to all our SMSU squads for a great academic year.

I need to finish packing. If it all works out, I’ll try and update all day on Tuesday during the trip. I’ve heard the bus has wireless on board; let’s hope it does. My office hasn’t bought one of those air cards yet, but hopefully next year we will.

Also next year, our plan is to have some sort of Blog for all of our teams that compete in an NCAA tournament. We’ll need to have a name for my assistant Tim’s blog. Any ideas?

Wish us safe travels and we’ll catch up with you on the road.

I'm Back!!

Hey Mustang fans; I'm back!! I'll be blogging from Grand Junction, Colo., this week where the SMSU baseball team is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance in school history. Check back at "The Hey Loft" for updates about this year's experience!