Stuck, In the Airport in Nashville

Sounds like a line in a country song, which I guess is appropriate for the location. Our Southwest Airlines flight to Orlando has been delayed, apparently indefinitely, by mechanical problems. The plane is on the ground in St. Louis and they have no idea when, or if, it will make it to Nashville.

The mechanical problem is joined by severe weather in the Nashville area. Thunderstorms are rumbling outside as I write this, and they temperature is supposed to plummet when the rain passes through.

At this point, we have no idea when we might get back to Florida.

It has been a while since I last blogged and I need to make it a point of emphasis to put thoughts to computer screen on a more regular basis. I just get so wrapped up in the day-to-day that I forget to take a step back and look at the big picture.

I have spent the last four nights at the Aloft Hotel in Franklin, TN, with the Stetson men's basketball team. If you follow me on Twitter (@rhazel_SID) or are friends on Facebook, then you probably already know my thoughts on the hotel.

In a word, it was weird!

It is a nice hotel, but different. It has a very European feel. It is the only hotel room I have ever been in, and there have been many, that did not have drawers to put clothes and other items in. Not one single drawer in the room.

Like I said, weird.

This trip has been a long and disappointing one for the Hatters. Stetson's men went into the weekend looking for a share of the Atlantic Sun Conference lead. That was lost on Saturday in the second half at Belmont when the Bruins got hot offensively and the Hatters couldn't keep up.

That night was also disappointing because the Stetson women's team saw their 10-game win streak come to an end in an upset loss.

I tweeted during the games that I was disappointed because I didn't see any of the Nashville "stars" at the game. I just didn't look in the right place. I saw Vince Gill and his wife Amy Grant after the game, but I didn't see Mark Miller from Sawyer Brown or Larry Stewart from Restless Heart, who were also at the game.

I am a big Restless Heart fan and would have liked to have met Stewart, but I am sure there will be another chance somewhere down the road. At some point I'll write about seeing Restless Heart with Lone Star and Blackhawk in an outdoor concert in Arizona several years ago. It was July and, when the concert started at 11 p.m. local time it was 104 degrees.

Anyway, the Stetson men had a chance last night to earn a split on this always tough road trip, and the Hatters battled their guts out only to have their hearts broken in overtime.

Junior Adam Pegg had a career night with 28 points, two of which came at the end of regulation to force overtime with the entire Lipscomb student body screaming in his face from the baseline.

In overtime, the Hatters took a two point lead late in on a three-pointer by Aaron Graham, but, with one second left on the clock, Lipscomb hit an unlikely three-pointer of their own from a player who had hit just 2-of-6 from three all year. The 104-103 loss was Stetson's second loss in overtime this year.

Since I last wrote a blog (has it really been more than a month?) I have watched this Stetson basketball team make steady improvement. It may not be this year, but coach Casey Alexander will have his squad in the thick of the A-Sun title chance sooner rather than later.

While basketball season marches on, it is just over a month before the baseball season is scheduled to start, and softball will crank up even sooner. It is during the season overlap periods when media relations staff members become sleep deprived.

I met last week with the Stetson baseball staff to talk about the coming season and, needless to say, they are optimistic about their chances of having a good year. The Hatters return the bulk of the team from last year, including 42 of the 43 pitching wins, and are receiving plenty of pre-season recognition nationally.

Some of the lesser known polls have already come out with Stetson in the rankings. The Baseball America and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association polls will be coming in a matter of days and those, along with the USA Today Coaches Poll, make up the "major" polls.

I expect the Hatters to be ranked somewhere in the 20-25 range in all three polls when they hit the street.

Since I last blogged I had a chance to enjoy some time back in Alabama with my wife and dogs for Christmas. Joan has been very busy back home. In addition to her job as ticket manager at Troy University, as well as packing our home for the eventual move to Florida, she is also busy promoting her recent novel, which is called "The Last Guardian".

Her book sales have been going well and she is on the verge of cracking the top 1,000 in terms of sales on Amazon.com. She has a website and blog of her own which tells about her book and characters. Visit www.joanhazel.com to get information on both.

Once she gets settled in DeLand, I am sure she will find a place to have a couple of book signings.

I have been a writer my entire adult life, but I don't have a patience or talent to write a novel. I wish I did. I am so proud of her for her achievement. I know many people who have read her book (yes I have read it as well) who are anxiously awaiting the next installment in what is planned to be a four-part series.

I'll wrap up with a plug for this Friday night's game at the Edmunds Center. In addition to being a big game for the Hatters against in-state foe Florida Gulf Coast, the evening will feature to debut of the new Stetson Athletics mascot.

Every fan in attendance will receive a commemorative bandana as a keepsake from the debut, which will take place at halftime.

I am one of the few people who has actually seen the mascot and I am sure fans will agree that is will be a great ambassador for Stetson Athletics into the future. It certainly represents much of Stetson's history as well as the history of the area.

Friday's game will be a television game as well. CSS, which is a cable sports channel based in Atlanta, will carry the game. I have seen other CSS programing on the Brighthouse Sports channel in the past, so I would guess the game will be available there, but I have not been able to confirm that.

Matt Stewart, who is one of the main sports personalities at CSS, will handle play-by-play for the game with former Auburn coach Sonny Smith on color. It will be Sonny's second trip to DeLand this year. He was also in town for the game against Jacksonville a week or so ago.

The Stetson women will play at the Edmunds Center on Saturday afternoon against Florida Gulf Coast in a showdown between the top two teams in the Atlantic Sun. Expect a high-scoring game that day because FGCU shoots more three-pointers than any other team in women's college basketball.

Well, I guess that is it for me from rainy Nashville. It is pouring down rain outside and there is no plane in sight or expected soon.

Send me a message on Twitter (@rhazel_sid) or on Facebook and let me know what kinds of things you'd like to read about and I'll do my best to provide you some interesting stories from the road.

I'll just try to do it more often.

It's a whole new ball game for the Hatters

Today the Stetson men's basketball team left the friendly confines of the Edmunds Center for their first road trip of the year.

Big deal you might say. College teams go on the road all the time.

True enough. Travel is a major part of being involved with college athletics. I have seen more hotel rooms over the years than I can even think about.

What makes this trip different, at least for me, is that everything is new. It is not only new for me, it is also new for members of the Stetson coaching staff and several members of the Hatters team.

The first trip of any season is usually the strangest because no one has yet settled into a routine. This trip is different because no one knows what the routine will be.

For instance, the first thing we all had to figure out was where to sit on the bus.

Seems like a small thing, but the Hatters have a coaching staff that is working together under Casey Alexander for the first time, and he is a first time head coach. The seating arrangements worked themselves out pretty quickly, as they usually do, with coaches and staff in the front, players in the back.

The trip north to Tallahassee was relatively short, but we went a different way than I would have expected. We traveled north on Interstate 95 to I-10 and then west to the state capital. My first few trips back and forth from Troy, Ala., to DeLand has been down I-75.

Anyway, we got in a movie on the ride ("Wedding Crashers") and made pretty good time.

Once we got to the hotel, Casey pulled all of the players together to go over some simple ground rules. Most of the things he told them were things you would never normally think of, but this is new for everyone.

"It is amazing the small things about travel that you don’t think about until you are doing it for the first time with a new group," Alexander said. "You have to talk about how to take care of the bus, and take care of the hotel, and how to behave when you eat. Those are things you tend to take for granted, but they are all important because they tend to tell people what you want your program to look like."

So, after the short meeting, we ventured out for dinner at the Olive Garden across from our Courtyard by Marriott hotel. The players all handled dinner fine and all is well.

While I knocked out a preview of tomorrow night's game, as well as editing a recap of the Crew teams' adventure to Augusta over the weekend, the team was getting together to watch some film of tomorrow night's foe, Florida A&M.

Tomorrow will be breakfast, another scouting session and a shoot around in the morning before the teams spends the afternoon relaxing before the game.

On Tuesday, the focus will turn to the second game of the road trip, Florida State.