Hamilton: ETSU's bus trip from hell provides jarring dose of reality and unlikely win (2024)

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  • By Scott Hamiltonshamilton@postandcourier.com

    Scott Hamilton

    Scott Hamilton is the sports columnist for the Post and Courier.Previous stops include SportsBusiness Journal, Golfweek and theWinston-Salem Journal. No, he doesn't ice skate and he once sat ona train next to a rabbit.

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Tre Lamb walked, then jogged, then walked again Saturday afternoon along Johnson Hagood Stadium’s visiting sideline.

Stretching his legs felt good. Likewise for the bouncy feel of the stadium’s playing surface beneath his sneakered feet, even if it was fake grass. Such subtle sensations are often lost in mundane pregame rituals.

But not for Lamb, East Tennessee State’s first-year football coach. Not anymore, at least.

For him and dozens of others, a mild Lowcountry afternoon replaced the suffocating confines of a bus. The openness of the field before his team played The Citadel supplanted the anxiety of watching rising water approach closer and closer. And a slightly cloudy sky topped hours of being shrouded in fear.

“It was probably one of the worst days of my life,” Lamb said, “and honestly scary at times. It was like an apocalypse.”

He’s not kidding.

Because here’s ETSU’s (3-2, 1-0 Southern Conference) new reality if it wasn’t already part of its world: Football, despite all of its virtues, means little in the grand scheme of things. Merely being here to play in this lopsided stadium, however, meant everything.

And, no, that’s not some motivational spiel about showing up being half the battle or whatever.

Setting foot in Charleston to play the Bulldogs (2-3, 0-1)was a mighty accomplishment on several levels. And pulling off a 34-17 win was as much a testament to the Buccaneers’ mental wherewithal as it was their physical prowess.

If nothing else, it’s provided Lamb motivational fodder for years to come.

Trapped

This game seemed destined to be additional collateral damage from Hurricane Helene, the storm that pummeled so much of the Southeast, including the roadways connecting Charleston with ETSU’s home in Johnson City, Tenn.

That made an otherwise ho-hum 450-mile, seven-hour ride for three buses an adventure.

The Bucs left their campus at 10:30 a.m. on Friday; typically more than enough time to comfortably make the journey to Charleston.

But the convoy received news 30 minutes into the trip that I-40 was closed in both directions, as was I-26 South. The group soon lost cellphone reception and internet access, denying them further updates.

Hamilton: ETSU's bus trip from hell provides jarring dose of reality and unlikely win (5)

Even the state trooper accompanying the 100-person travel party composed of players, coaches and support staff, was completely disconnected.

The group eventually got off the interstate in Fletcher, N.C., to take Spartanburg Highway into South Carolina. But that road was also closed. With waters rising on either side, the buses drove to a spot on higher ground and waited.

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Story continues below

  • Gassing up after Helene: Upstate drivers wait up to an hour for a pump - if they could find one
  • South Carolina death toll from Helene climbs to 22, including a North Carolina man
  • Update: Aiken is not running out of water after Tropical Storm Helene moved through
  • Spartanburg shocked by Helene's wrath, as death toll mounts and daily life is halted
  • They put their Myrtle Beach-area house on the market in April. Helene knocked an oak on it.
  • Helene sweeps through North Augusta with high damage; water restored and National Guard on site
  • 'Disaster after the disaster:' Local residents face Tropical Storm Helene's aftermath
  • Update: Aiken City Council to discuss Tropical Storm Helene Sept. 30
  • SC death toll from Helene climbs to 19 after 2 more found dead in Spartanburg County
  • Helene pummeled parts of SC with wicked winds and driving rain; at least 19 people died.

The rest of the timeline and details of what happened after that are pretty immaterial.

Suffice to say there were alternating waves of anxiety and luck over the next few hours.

The team was fed by a nearby grocery store without power that was about to throw away its food; everyone was resigned to the reality that they would be spending the night sleeping in their seats; the buses occasionally had to relocate to increasingly higher locations.

All of this before receiving news around 1:30 Saturday morning that the road was passable.

ETSU’s team arrived in Charleston at around 5 a.m., and scarfed down some Waffle House before getting about four hours sleep. Its 2 p.m., kickoff with the Citadel was pushed back three hours, giving the Bucs a little more time to regroup to some sense of gameday normalcy.

But there was nothing normal about this trip.

“We’ve got a resilient group,” Lamb said. “And our guys wanted to play— that’s what they kept talking about it. ‘Let’s just get down there and try to play the game somehow, someway.’”

Now or never

All things considered, the most logical option would’ve been to send everyone home and try again another time.

Regrouping later in the year, however, was never on the table. If it was going to be played (something both sides insisted they wanted) then it was going to happen immediately. Their schedules otherwise didn’t properly align.

“That conversation never came up,” Mike Capaccio, The Citadel’s athletic director, said. “If the game wasn’t played this weekend, it wasn’t gonna be played.”

Another option, pushing the game back a day, was briefly considered by officials and coaches for both schools, as were myriad start times on Saturday, with the 5 p.m. kickoff being the consensus pick.

That left the big mystery of which of the two versions Lamb described during his pregame walk would show up: A team that’s “gonna be tired” or one that’s “gonna be like a bunch of rabid dogs ready to get off a bus and go attack.”

The crowd of 11,363 saw versions of both throughout the game. The Bucs led 13-3 at halftime and always seemed within a play or two of putting the game away.

Then the other version— the exhausted, road-weary one— emerged, allowing The Citadel to stay within striking distance. Three fourth-quarter touchdowns allowed ETSU to finally wrap up an unlikely win.

“You certainly don’t have (situations like this) in the head coach playbook,” Lamb said. “It’s definitely not something you think you’re going to have to deal with.”

The 35-year-old Lamb left the stadium in a fashion similar to the way he entered; though he was perhaps a bit slower and and a touch more fatigued as he made his exit.

Perhaps he just wasn’t too eager for that inevitable bus trip home, though it's a lot more bearable after a win.

Follow Scott Hamilton on X @ScottHamiltonPC

More information

  • After ETSU's harrowing journey, kickoff at The Citadel delayed; plus, Bucs' bus timeline
  • App State cancels football game against Liberty in North Carolina after Helene causes flooding
  • Former Berkeley HS standout emerges as Citadel deep threat

Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton is the sports columnist for the Post and Courier.Previous stops include SportsBusiness Journal, Golfweek and theWinston-Salem Journal. No, he doesn't ice skate and he once sat ona train next to a rabbit.

  • Author email

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