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The End of a Long Football Trip
Published: 11/19/2006 4:04 PM
Last Modified: 11/19/2006 4:04 PM

Football season is all about travel planning.
Even home games, at Stillwater and Norman, require some planning.
Games in Norman are all day affairs. An 11 a.m. game means leaving at 7 a.m. and getting home 14 hours later.
Games in Stillwater are a little easier but still take a full day.
In other words, don't make any plans on game days.
However, it is travel on the road to cover OU, OSU and Tulsa that will drain you by Thanksgiving.
Last weekend's trip to Waco was the seventh weekend for me that required more than a drive down the turnpike to Norman or Stillwater.
My hotel in Waco was the 17th night I've spent in a hotel room since September.
It was a 750-mile round trip to see OU play Baylor.
We've also done road trips to Kansas Speedway and Texas Speedway for NASCAR. We were at Lawrence, Kan. earlier last week for ORU's huge upset of Kansas.
We've also been on flights to Columbia, Mo., Dallas, Kansas City and Houston.
We drove from Fort Worth to College Station to see OU at A&M.
We've seen some terrific games.
OU at A&M and A&M at OSU were both highly entertaining games. The right team won one of those games and the wrong team won the other.
December brings a break from the constant travel.
It'll be great to avoid motels for a few weeks.
It'll be great to avoid late night drives back home or to hotels.
No more morning coffee and muffins at the hotel on the way to the stadium.
Most importantly, no more stadium food.
Sure, the games are great. It is why sports writers almost always love their jobs.
However, after three decades of following sports teams all over the country, the long line of hotel rooms and long rides into the night get old.
So, December has always meant more to me than my birthday and Christmas.
I get to stay home. My dog will be shocked to learn she has two parents, not just the mom she's been living with since August.




Reader Comments 1 Total
Dan Jensen (6 years ago)
I enjoyed reading about that aspect of a sportswriter's life. You put good stuff on the blog. Keep it up.
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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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