Inside the Game: Road trip! Skippers redefine it

"All Players Must Shower Before Boarding the Bus!" ¶ That statement, printed loud and clear at the top of the itinerary, had nothing to do with football and everything to do with not stinking up the three charter buses that transported the Minnetonka football team to Kansas City for a Thursday night game.

The Skippers' opponent was Rockhurst High. What happened between kickoff and 00:00 was pure football. What happened between boarding the buses Wednesday evening and arriving home before Friday's sunrise was pure teen, pure road, pure adventure.

6:30 p.m. Skippers coach Dave Nelson walks to the buses carrying two erasable white boards under one arm and a bag filled with empty water bottles in the other hand.

"This is the glamorous side of the job," he says with a smile.

The buses' luggage compartments carry not just suitcases and football gear but case after case of Gatorade and boxes filled with bananas and prepackaged muffins. The traveling party is 83 players, plus coaches, support staff, the head coach's wife, four female student managers and a couple of hitch-hiking journalists.

6:42 p.m. One of the coaches walks into the locker room to rustle up any stragglers: "Hey! Bus is leaving! Let's go!"

6:56 p.m. Nelson boards the lead bus and says, "OK," ... but no wheels turn until the managers return from distributing cookies to the other buses.

6:58 p.m. A voice from the back of the bus yells, "Coach! Can we put a movie on?" The bus has not yet moved.

7:29 p.m. Twenty-five minutes down the road, senior Ismail Karon stands behind the driver's seat and operates the on-board DVD player. Nelson asks, "What are you putting in, Ish?" The answer: "Ironman."

8:15 p.m. As a highway mileage sign says "Albert Lea 19" a large Tupperware container is passed around, providing a true Minnesota treat: chocolate-covered Rice Krispies bars.

10:25 p.m. The caravan pulls into the Gateway Hotel & Conference Center in Ames, Iowa. A couple of coaches, traveling ahead by car, have arranged for pizzas. As people disembark, they see 80 pizza boxes stacked on benches outside the lobby. As room keys are distributed, Nelson instructs the players about lights out (11 p.m.), breakfast (8 a.m.) and finally, "Two pizzas per room!" One of the players, pizza box in hand, dashes inside and yells back to a slower-footed buddy, "Mitch! We've got the pizza, you've got the cards!"

7:39 a.m. The phone rings in room 403. A living, breathing voice says, "Good morning. This is your 7:30 wakeup call."

8:18 a.m. The team is having a quiet breakfast of pancakes, ham and potatoes in a hotel meeting room. As Minnetonka athletic trainer Zibby Tully-Nunn walks into the room, the players serenade her by singing "Happy Birthday." More than one of them yells, "How old are you, Zibby?" They get no answer, only a smile.

9:10 a.m. The buses leave the hotel for the short drive to Iowa State University.

9:15 a.m. The caravan unloads at the Bergstrom Indoor Training Facility, next door to Jack Trice Stadium.

"Oh, this is sweet," one of the Skippers says, walking into the four-year-old building, which houses a full football field. The players wear street clothes during a 45-minute walk-through, but some of them work up a good sweat. And one of the coaches works up a lather: Defensive coordinator Greg Clough, unhappy with what he sees, screams, "We're not going 7 1/2 hours to get our butts kicked!"

10 a.m. The team walks next door to Jack Trice Stadium. Iowa State assistant coach Jeff Koonz, who recruits the Twin Cities, shakes hands with Skippers players Kyle Risinger, Taylor Nelson and Beau Allen. A few minutes later, Cyclones head coach Gene Chizik walks up to Dave Nelson and says, "Hi, Dave." They chat for a few minutes.

10:35 a.m. As the buses leave Ames, another round of Rice Krispies bars is distributed.

10:42 a.m. On the video screens: the Skippers' 2006 season highlight DVD, followed by the 2007 DVD, followed by "Friday Night Lights."

11:40 a.m. Hollywood coach Billy Bob Thornton tells the Permian Panthers, 'We are in the business of winning.'"

11:57 a.m. Billy Bob says, "You shouldn't have any doubt about what you're supposed to do tonight or how you're supposed to do it."

12:45 p.m. A community park in Bethany, Mo. The coaches traveling by car have picked up 100 sandwiches from the local Subway, and the Skippers are having lunch. Some sit on the grass, some on a swing set, some on ballfield bleachers. The sun is warm, the breeze is cool. Everyone is relaxed.

1:40 p.m. Back on the bus, Nelson speaks with authority: "OK, we're in football mode now. You can talk, you can read, you can sleep. It's football time." The bus is completely silent during the 90-mile ride to Kansas City.

2:47 p.m. Highway sign reads "Kansas City 18." Before long the Kansas City skyline is visible in the distance, the caravan passes the Worlds of Fun amusement park ... and the Rice Krispies bars take another lap around the bus.

3:29 p.m. Arrival at Rockhurst, an all-boys, Jesuit school surrounded by a quiet neighborhood and office buildings. Junior Anthony Boyce tells the driver, "Thanks for getting us here." As the players disembark behind Vincent P. Dasta Memorial Stadium, their initial reaction is, "Oh, it's warm." Some return to the motor coaches and ditch their jackets.

3:40 p.m. There is plenty of time to kill before kickoff at 7:05. The Skippers take a leisurely stroll around the stadium, most of them ending up on the field. They lay on the artificial turf, sit in the bleachers, toss footballs around ... teens at ease.

4:33 p.m. Nelson has lined up a pregame speaker. He initially called former Vikings coach Les Steckel, who lives in Kansas City and is president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Steckel couldn't make it, but the speaker is former Green Bay, Kansas City and Vikings tight end Paul Coffman, who played in three Pro Bowls in the 1980s.

During Coffman's 15-minute address outside the locker room, the Skippers sit on a grassy knoll as cars drive past on a tree-lined street. Coffman's talk is Bible-themed, with verses from Proverbs, Isaiah, Mark, Hebrews and Matthew. The players, however, are more likely to remember this story from Coffman's rookie NFL season: "When it was time to weigh in, I'd put a 5-pound weight in my jock so I could be at 215 pounds."

4:48 p.m. As a round of applause for Coffman dies down, Risinger asks the trainer, "Can I get taped, Zibby?" A few seconds later, Tully-Nunn is working on Risinger's ankles.

6:46 p.m. A member of the Rockhurst radio crew asks a visitor: "What's the significance of the nickname 'Skippers?'" Told it is a nautical term, the Missourian said, "Oh, like Gilligan's Island!"

7:05 p.m. Kickoff between Minnetonka and Rockhurst on a beautiful October evening.

7:17 p.m. Rockhurst scores the first of five touchdowns, with Illinois-bound quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase putting on a display of passing and running like the Skippers have never seen.

9:22 p.m. Final score: Rockhurst 38, Minnetonka 7. The Skippers went 7 1/2 hours and got their butts kicked. Coach Nelson gathers his guys at midfield for the postgame benediction.

"What's important in life," he tells them, "is that you dare mighty things, you dare great things. They were better than us tonight, but I'm proud that we dared something mighty."

10:22 p.m. Wheels roll, heading home.

10:23 p.m. Voice from back of the bus: "Hey, do you guys wanna watch a movie?"

10:27 p.m. Opening credits of "I Am Legend" (which is not subtitled "The Nathan Scheelhaase Story").

10:30 p.m. Coach Nelson and an assistant watch tonight's game film on a laptop computer.

12:01 a.m. "I Am Legend" ends. Sign says "Des Moines 91."

1:48 a.m. At a rest stop north of Des Moines, the three drivers are replaced by fresh, rested men.

5:31 a.m. Home. Bed. Sleep. Start thinking about the next game.

It's a home game.

John Millea • jmillea@startribune.com