Terror on the School Bus

This doozy took place last Friday night as I returned home from an out of town basketball game with my team. It truly was a surreal experience, one of those that you couldn't make up if you tried.

I would like to preface the story with the fact that it was indeed a dangerous situation and I am in no way trying to make a joke out of it, only passing on what was going through my mind, as small as it may be. There were many witnesses/participants on this ride with me and some of the account may be embellished, for this I apologize, but again it is how I processed the situation as the events unfolded. The names of towns and individuals will remain undisclosed to protect the innocent.

It all started as we loaded up the bus, as we have done countless times in the last three years, to go on the road and stomp the guts out of our opponent. Not bragging here, that is just our frame of mind, why get on the bus or take the floor if you don't expect to neutralize the competition? It just so happens that this game would take place in my hometown, where I grew up playing basketball, so it always has a little extra oompf for me. It is also about a two hour and fifteen minute drive.

We headed out to the eastern plains around two o'clock in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight and a gloriously warm winter day. That removes two very large obstacles that confront a driver in Colorado in the winter. Good roads and plenty of daylight to get there, things are looking up. Both the JV and Varsity boast records with only one loss and the bus, coaches included, are brimming with confidence. Designated parents have brought sack lunches for everyone to tide us over for the long haul into the sand dunes. As we board the bus I notice we have a driver that I am unfamiliar with but don't give it a second thought, he appears to be at an age that he could probably drive this bus in his sleep from the thousands of miles he has logged in his career, ironic huh? We were soon to find out different.

Everybody on, roll call taken, because it really is about the kids right: their commitment to the team, their school, their friends, and themselves. I always tell the girls that basketball is a microcosm of life. You can't win them all, you can't do it all yourself, you need help and must help others. I don't know if they believe me but I find it to be true. Now as coaches we are entrusted with teaching things like this along with a good old pick and roll, and with that comes the trust that we will have other people's children in our care. Something you take for granted and don't really think will ever be challenged.

We are casually on our way and have touched the rumble strips on the side of the road a couple times but who doesn't, and the bus is huge. We are sixty miles in and the tires actually leave the pavement and we are on the gravel shoulder, just for a few seconds but long enough for everyone to think is it just me or was that a little scary. No one really says anything, a few nervous laughs, but no one wants to be the person who yells fire. We touch the rumble strips a few more times and there is an anxious moment when we share a narrow bridge with an oncoming semi. More glances and jokes, but a little perspiration is added.

We arrive at the game site and are roughly pulled into a parking spot, everyone debarks, glad to be off the bus and ready for a game. My team plays first, we stomps guts, and as the varsity is warming up I notice our driver in the stands sneaking in a cat nap, good, better now than later right? The varsity gets a great win and we are ready to go. Some kids ride home with their parents, others get on the doomsday bus.

We are now headed back home and on the ride of our life. We are no more than three miles out of town and start to gradually drift in and out of our lane. I am starting to get a little nervous and try to get an angle to see if the driver is 'napping' again. The girls on the bus are squirming and screeching with every movement that might be considered out of the norm. They are fueling each others fear and it is on a steady rise, jumping by leaps and bounds. The head coach and I talk and decide we will move up by the driver and start a conversation, one that will keep him engaged and more importantly alert. It works to some degree, but if the conversation lags for a minute or two we start to drift one way or another. We reach the first small town and see the only stoplight in town is red, for some reason we stop a block away.

The coaches again start their incessant chatter with said driver but find that silence, even a minute is directly proportional to our drift factor. Now it's getting a little freaky and the girls are really amped up, some have called their parents to pull over and pick them up. the coaches decide we should tell the driver to stop at a town half way home to help with the attention problem and we do. Five or six girls get off to ride with their parents and the others are left feeling like human sacrifices. As the driver turns the bus around he swipes the mirror against a no parking sign and parks to wait. We can't believe it. We wait for the girls to come out of the convenience store, many of us needed a bathroom break, and I notice the driver dozing in his seat. What the? The girls file on after hugging the 'lucky' ones who are riding with parents, it looks like a parade down the green mile as they find their seats and brace for the worst.

We are on the interstate for a few miles and things are better, we have parents following us now to document exactly where we exited the road as the bus drove into the ditch. Just kidding but at least we now have someone who knows where we are. We leave the safety of the four lane and it's back into Dantes Inferno. Driver is confused by all turn lanes, we ride half way in and half way out. I notice driver get out a flashlight and start to check the dashboard, I can see the dash fine from where I am and wonder what we did wrong to get Mr. Magoo as a driver tonight. We are still trying to talk to him but the drifting is back. I try to draw attention to the fact and ask if the bus is a little light in the front end and he replies that sometimes it's kind of hard to see at night. WHAT? You have your brights on and haven't dimmed them for anyone no matter how many times they flash you. They paint a white line along the road that goes from here to where ever you are trying to get, it's like a safety precaution so stay beside it, not over. How much help do you need?

At this point we round a gradual curve and see a semi coming our way, we have again drifted and the girls actually dive from one side of the bus to the other and the head coach starts screaming over, over, over. This is the final straw. Head coach tells him pull over, we are going to have a different driver or we are getting off. Driver says you can get off but no one else is driving, so we get all the girls off the bus and watch him drive into the night as we stand along side the road. Eventually we have parents that were called show up and we pile everyone into cars and head for the school.

The next day when I see the girls again one player asks if I have heard the ending and I ask what it is. Apparently the driver got to the bus barn fine and as he is navigating into the garage manages to side swipe the diving coaches car for his finale. A perfect ending to a nightmarish trip.

Fortunately no one is hurt on our bus nor any other drivers on the road that night. It just goes to show you you can plan for a lot of things, but you can't plan for everything. We leave again on Tuesday to play ball out of town and you can bet the driver is in for the third degree, even Otto from the Simpson's would make me feel better. I will let you know how it goes.

Sorry this one is so long.