If the road is life, as Jack Kerouac claimed, then varsity athletes must be approaching immortality. As the hub of the college athletic experience--about half of it, in fact--the road trip has as many forms as there are competitive foes. For Cornell, a ninety-minute drive to Colgate is altogether different from an eight-hour overnighter to Dartmouth, and the back roads of Cortland are a far cry from the streets of Philadelphia.

Regardless of the destination, the road trip is a consistent reminder that the player is a different breed of collegian. For many students, weekends mean relaxation. For student-athletes, they're an odd mix of regimentation and exploration, often more memorable for the sacrifice (long bus rides, missed vacations) than for the sight-seeing. But occasionally, a road trip emerges as an Event, the annual treks to Lafayette or Princeton giving way to unfamiliar excursions. The wrestling team visits Virginia. Hockey travels to Michigan. Baseball starts the spring season in Florida.

Last December, as 1997 came to a close, the Big Red men's basketball team spent an extended weekend competing in the Golden Bear Classic, a tournament hosted by the University of California. Here's what happened:

Friday, December 26, 10 p.m. After a mid-day practice on the Hill, a one-hour drive to the Syracuse airport, a two-hour flight to Chicago, and a four-hour second leg into Oakland, the two vans that were supposed to be waiting for the team are nowhere to be found. It's an inauspicious beginning. Instead, the sixteen members of the Cornell contingent, jet-lagged and still trying to return circulation to long legs unfit for cramped cabins, are met with a sight that causes double takes. Their welcoming committee is a set of identical twins.

Former Cal-Berkeley basketball players Rupe and John Ricksen are their guides for the three-day, four-night experience. The sexagenarian sibs will be a ubiquitous presence, if only because it is all but impossible to tell them apart. Throughout the weekend, the Cornellians will be seen chatting with one or the other. Just don't ask them which.

11:25 p.m. The team has finally arrived at the Marriott in downtown Oakland. Assistant coach Jonathan Tsipis is assigning the rooms, while the rest of the group--head coach Scott Thompson, assistant coach Ray Jones, trainer Linda Hoisington, assistant sports communications director Pat Gillespie, and eleven basketball players--mill around the lobby.

The room assignments are as carefully choreographed as the game plan. "We try to put freshmen with upperclassmen, especially at the beginning of the year when they haven't been on many road trips," Tsipis explains. The coaches also attempt to match players who are similar on the court but dissimilar off of it. So Jeffrion Aubry '99, a 6-foot-11 black center from Long Island, rooms with Cody Bradshaw '01, his white backup from Memphis. Ray Mercedes '01, a recruit from the Bronx known to all as "Pops," is matched with Jim Pieri '00, an Exeter graduate. It's an easy way to create mentors and dissolve barriers, and it works. Now if they could only do something about the size of the beds. Says Aubry, the near seven-footer with size 19 feet, explaining his own game plan for the evening, "Either I sleep corner to corner or I hang off the end."

Saturday, December 27, 10 a.m. The visit officially begins with some community service, a clinic put on by the four teams in the tournament (Cornell, Cal, Virginia Commonwealth, and New Hampshire) for several dozen members of local youth groups. Only the Big Red freshmen are required to attend; the rest of the team can sleep in. A rookie's a rookie, and they're reminded of it often. "We have to carry everything--the bags, the food, the VCR equipment," explains Kevin Cuttica '01. "We load it on the bus, take it off the bus, carry it into the airport, carry it up to the coaches' rooms . . ." Cuttica, incidentally, is the Red's starting point guard, often called upon to carry the team.

10:30 p.m. Coach Thompson is standing in front of twenty teens and peppering them with questions. Have you ever heard of Cornell? Do you know where it is? Can you name the other schools in the Ivy League? One kid seems to have most of the answers. "If you work really hard, you could go to Cornell someday," Thompson tells him. "Nah," he responds, "I'd rather go to Cal."

Thompson has the freshmen demonstrate various drills--a crossover dribble, a hesitation dribble, a full-court dribble. Midway through the clinic, he gathers everyone at midcourt and says, "We're really proud because we feel we're representing one of the top universities in the country." He urges the freshmen to tell the kids about their future goals. Kevin Cuttica says he wants to work on the Chicago Board of Trade. With one eye on Cuttica, Cody Bradshaw says he wants to own whatever company Kevin works for someday. "Then I'll be happy."

As Coach Tsipis continues the clinic, teaching the students proper shooting form, then leading them in a defensive drill, Thompson sidles over and evaluates the scene. "This is really good for our players," he says. "They remember when they were these kids' age and they looked up to the big kids. Now, they're the big kids."

12:15 p.m. Three coaches and five reporters are crowded into a small room on the second floor of the sports facility for a pre-tournament press conference, such as it is. "Is there anyone on the team we should pay particular attention to?" a reporter asks Thompson.

"Well, we've got a big kid. He had arthroscopic surgery right before Thanksgiving, but he had sixteen boards in our last game. His name's Jeffrion Aubry, and he's going to have to play well for us to win games." He pauses for a few seconds. "He's also the future commissioner of the NBA." The reporters laugh, as Thompson explains, "We have a school at Cornell called Industrial and Labor Relations. Jeff wants to go to law school and maybe become a sports agent, but I kid him that he's going to be commissioner . . ."

"You know," New Hampshire head coach Jeff Jackson interrupts with a smile, "sometimes the kids who go to the ILR school screw up and become basketball coaches." Jackson is Cornell Class of '83.

3:00 p.m. After completing its first practice in Berkeley, the Big Red contingent embarks on a search for California culture, which consists of a late afternoon trip across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. The players are a geographically diverse bunch--from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, and Nebraska--but most have never been to the Bay Area. Their first stop is A. Sabella's, a historic restaurant owned by Antone Sabella '73.

As an early dinner is prepared, Pops is talking with his roommate, Pieri, listing the boroughs of New York City. "Bronx . . . Brooklyn . . . Queens . . . Staten Island . . ."

"Long Island?" asks Pieri, who hails from faraway Buffalo.

"No."

"So what's Coney Island?"

Dinner consists of clam chowder, pasta, and a main course of halibut. Lots of food--for anyone who doesn't have to duck under doorways. But Sabella has encountered far greater challenges. Five years ago, a group of hungry sumo wrestlers visited the restaurant. "There must have been fifty or sixty people, most of them about four hundred pounds," he recalls. "Compared to that, these basketball players are nothing."

5:10 p.m. Pier 39, along the wharf, is to tourists what flypaper is to flies. Given an hour-and-a-half to see the sights of San Francisco, the players head straight for it. "I need to buy a postcard of Alcatraz," says Bradshaw, who admits the closest he's come to the famed prison is an A&E "Biography" about it. He and Cuttica walk into The College Shop, which sells hats, shirts, ties, and bumper stickers. A sign in front says "WE HAVE YOUR SCHOOL."Cuttica is carefully examining a maroon baseball cap with a "C" on it. "I don't know what that is," he says, after a while, "but it's not us."

Nearly an hour later, after strolling aimlessly around the pier's ice cream shops and oyster bars, cappuccino counters and carnival games, pizzerias and arcades, Bradshaw finally finds what he was looking for. Cuttica looks at the postcard and shakes his head. "Makes Alcatraz look like a hotel."

7:40 p.m. You have to feel sorry for the fans in Section 121, Row 17 at Oakland's New Arena because Section 121, Row 16 consists of the Cornell basketball team. For Keirian Brown '00, it's his first trip ever to an NBA game. "They seem a lot different in person than they do on TV, a lot slower," he says, as he watches the lousy Philadelphia 76ers take on the even lousier Golden State Warriors.

Indeed, the pre-game introductions--all smoke and lasers and spotlights--may prove to be the most exciting part of the evening.

7:50 p.m. The section is crawling with the vertically blessed. The VCU team is sitting a few seats down from the Cornell squad. The New Hampshire players are in front of them. All three groups are intently ignoring each other.

8:05 p.m. Rookie center Adonal Foyle checks in for the Warriors. A year ago, he was playing for Colgate. Cornell's Keirian Brown, then a freshman, was matched up against him and finished with a season-best ten points. Perhaps stirred by the sight of his collegiate nemesis in an NBA uniform, Brown mulls over the possibility of a future in professional basketball: "I'd love for it to happen, but if it doesn't . . . I mean, that's why I went to Cornell."

10:15 p.m. The game is long over, but the Big Red has been allowed to visit the winners' locker room. Bo Buettenback '98 approaches Sixers forward Theo Ratliff and asks him if he remembers Ray Jones, who coached Ratliff at the University of Wyoming before coming to Cornell. Quran Pender '01 approaches Philadelphia star Allen Iverson and asks if he can have his shoes.

Sunday, December 28, 10:30 a.m. Eleven players and three coaches are squeezed into Thompson's hotel room. Their eyes are glued to the TV, and it isn't Spectravision. It's a tape of a game Virginia Commonwealth played a few weeks earlier. Ray Jones hands out a two-page synopsis, consisting of a few lines summarizing each opposing player, condensed from hours of watching videotape. ("No. 22: Archie, Terrance--6'5"--Play straight up--will drive or get the 17'--works hard without the ball--be physical with him.") Thompson begins the videotape and the lesson: "The pass goes here. They're going to drop this guy and bring this man over, and they're going to flash into a 1-3-1. They're going to bring it back here, and the guy that's low is going to try to come out and set a screen . . ."

There is not a yawn in the room.

12:00 p.m. Back at the New Arena. There are no announcers, no spectators, no lasers, no spotlights. Just the Cornell basketball team doing drills. Because Cal's stadium in Berkeley is being renovated, the game is to be contested here, where the pros play. "The fun's over," says Thompson, just before taking the court. "Time to get down to business."

The first half of the practice consists of a series of shooting contests between the juniors and seniors ("vets") and the freshmen and sophomores ("rookies"). The players appear to enjoy the routine, but it isn't entirely about having fun. It's about saving face and fine-tuning skills. Afterward, the team is separated into a white team (starters) against a red team (substitutes). The red team, with the help of Jones and his file full of scouting insights, simulates a number of typical VCU plays. Virginia Commonwealth is more talented than Cornell, which has struggled to a 1-6 mark so far this season, and the last time the two schools squared off (in 1973) the Big Red lost by 43 points. But if a coaching staff's diligence can translate into points, Cornell might have a chance.

1:30 p.m. Time for the pre-game meal in one of the Marriott's hospitality suites. Usually, the routine calls for pasta, hamburgers, and (Coach Thompson's personal request) pancakes. There are no pancakes today. Too expensive. Good thing Thompson isn't superstitious.

3:05 p.m. Ray Mercedes is slipping on his Big Red jersey and explaining how he earned his nickname. "When I was young, I was pretty fat. Being Hispanic, there's a little term for young, fat people, so my grandmother used to call me Papote. Everyone still calls me Papote back home. When I started playing basketball, they had difficulty saying that, so they just used to call me Pops for short. The name just stuck. Now even my grandmother calls me Pops."

Stick any group of guys together, and the nicknames start to flow. So it is with the Cornell team. DeShawn Standard is Show. Brent Fisher '98 is Fish. Quran Pender is Q. Keirian Brown is K. Jeff Aubry is Big Dog. Meanwhile, Pops is popping cold pills, having escaped Ithaca for sunny California only to get sick. "I guess it was all that walking we did yesterday," he explains.

3:15 p.m. The eleven players have gathered in the Marriott lobby, concentrating only on the sounds coming from their portable CD players and headphones. Pops is listening to Tupac Shakur. Big Dog is playing Biggie Smalls. Q has chosen Master P. Clearly, if you're preparing for a big game, Garth Brooks doesn't cut it. Even Bradshaw, the Southerner who's all drawl and bones, is listening to Tupac. "I didn't listen to rap much until I got up here," he admits. "They influenced me."

Aside from music, the players don't admit to any other pre-game rituals. Well, most of them. "Personally," says Pender, "I always take a shower before the game, and I put on cologne--Michael Jordan cologne. I like to smell good out there." To which Ray Jones replies, "If he could play like Jordan, I'd get a whole darn bath of it for him."

3:25 p.m. Five-foot-three Muggsy Bogues of the Golden State Warriors walks through the lobby past Aubry, and they exchange greetings. You can tell that Big Dog, twenty inches taller than Bogues, looks up to him anyway.

4:55 p.m. The Cornellians take their seats on the bench at the New Arena, in their usual specific order. "In our particular situation," says Linda Hoisington, the trainer, "it's the assistant coaches, then the starters, then the other guys, and I'm at the end of the bench, which means nobody wants to sit by me because that means they're either hurt or at the bottom of the roster."

And what about the head coach?

"Scott doesn't sit," she says. "He paces."

5:00 p.m. Game One of the Golden Bear Classic, with only a few hundred fans in attendance (although two of them are NBA scouts). Aubry starts the scoring, receiving a pass down low for a lay-up, and before long the Big Red has jumped to an 11-7 lead. But then VCU's talent kicks in, and the Rams embark on a 15-0 run. By half-time, it's VCU 40, Cornell 23. It's not looking pretty.

6:24 p.m. The second half has been a whole new ball game. The Red has kept pace with the Rams, and with eight minutes remaining, Cornell trails by only eleven points, 57-46. Then Thompson's team puts together perhaps its best stretch of basketball all season. They will not allow a VCU basket for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, they chip away at the score. 57-49. 57-50. 57-52. The crowd, streaming in to watch Cal play in the next game, has taken a rooting interest in the Big Red. They know an underdog when they see one.

6:50 p.m. After an amazing comeback, Cornell trails 57-54 with just 14.9 seconds left on the clock. Thompson calls time-out and inserts Jim Pieri into the game. Pieri was an excellent high school player, even breaking his high school's single-season scoring record, a mark held by current NBA star Christian Laettner. But Division I college ball is altogether different, and Pieri saw little playing time last year--so little time, in fact, that he was forced to pose for a fake action photo for this year's media guide because the only stock photos showed him sitting on the bench.

But Pops has just fouled out, and Pieri can shoot from the outside. One three-pointer can tie the game, so for the first time all night Pieri checks in. Talk about pressure.

6:51 p.m. Sometimes happy endings don't materialize. Pieri, unable to get an open look at the basket, passes to Kevin Cuttica, whose shot falls short. Brent Fisher grabs the rebound but, with the last seconds ticking away, his desperation attempt bounces off the front of the rim. Final score: VCU 57, Cornell 54.

After the game, VCU coach Sonny Smith admits, "Physically, mentally, Cornell deserved to win the game. They really did." But moral victories don't count.

9:00 p.m. The team is having nachos and Cokes at the Pacific Coast Brewing Company across the street from the Marriott. With them are a handful of alumni, including one in a bright red Cornell sweater. He's Alex Barna '72, vice president of the Cornell Alumni Association of Northern California. "We're hosting the team here tonight," he says. "Every time one of the athletic teams comes out here, we try to do something for them."

Usually, it's a more lively affair, he explains, but the players are down after the tough loss, and the alums are few, it being the middle of the holiday season. Still, Barna is all smiles. After all, it's not often that a Californian gets to see his beloved Big Red in person--win or lose. "Oh, I'll be at the game again tomorrow," he says. "No doubt about it."

Monday, December 29, 11:00 a.m. Another practice at the NewArena. This time it's Coach Tsipis relating his scouting discoveries about UNH. Player A is a left-handed shooter . . . Player B is physical inside . . . Player C likes the medium-range jumper . . .

Tsipis is harder to pin down. He can make a pair of unique claims in college athletics. First, while he was a student at the University of North Carolina, he served as an assistant coach at the school's most hated rival, Duke. Second, the twenty-three-year-old is also a pharmacist, having graduated from UNC's program in 1996.

In August of that year, Tsipis learned he had passed his medical boards. Three days later, Scott Thompson called to offer him a spot on the Big Red staff. Tsipis's father was a former member of the Greek national basketball team. His older sister and brother both played the game in college. Tsipis, himself, was a high school player and a walk-on junior varsity gym rat at UNC.

Like Thompson, who has been immersed in the game since his days as an All-Big-Ten player at Iowa, and like Ray Jones, the well-traveled assistant, basketball is in Tsipis's blood. "So you see," he says, "there wasn't much of a decision to make."

3:15 p.m. Jones is listing all the places he has coached over the past twenty-seven years. "I coached at Jacksonville in '71-'72. I went to Houston from '72 to '74. From there, I was at Cincinnati for two years . . ."

3:18 p.m. ". . . Then I was at Duke. We went to the NCAA Finals. Then Furman University for two years. Then South Carolina from 1980 to '86 . . ."

3:21 p.m. ". . . After that, it was Minnesota for a year, Wyoming for six years, Idaho for three . . ."

5 p.m. "Please rise for our National Anthem . . ." This being the consolation game between the two first-round losers, neither of which is Cal-Berkeley, all ninety spectators comply.

The sidelines are rife with Cornell ties. At one end of the press row is Scott Stapin, New Hampshire's director of athletic media relations, whose last job was a six-year stint with the Big Red. In front of a microphone is David Zizmor '97, who used to broadcast basketball play-by-play for WVBR. Now working for KCBS in San Francisco, he has agreed to pinch-hit for Cornell's radio network.

And standing, arms folded, in front of the New Hampshire bench is Jeff Jackson, the UNH head coach who wants--more than anything--to beat his alma mater. "I really have a lot of strong sentiments for Cornell," he insists. "My wife went there. I got married there. I started my coaching career as a JV coach there. But when we play basketball, my players aren't really all that concerned that I went to Cornell."

6:25 p.m. After keeping pace with UNH for the first fifteen minutes of the game, Cornell stumbles. They trailed by five at half-time and by nine early in the second half. Now, with ten minutes left, they are down 40-29.

Cody Bradshaw checks into the game, a fact largely ignored by the several hundred fans now in attendance. But not by four of them in the second row--Bradshaw's father, mother, sister, and brother, who flew in from Memphis to see him play. "That was a dream of all our children--to play college ball," says Mike Bradshaw, who is heading down to L.A. after the game to watch his oldest son play for the Merchant Marine Academy. "Now Cody is living out his dream."

6:26 p.m. Bradshaw is called for a foul. His family lets the refs have it.

6:45 p.m. The Big Red has outscored UNH 22-14 in the past ten minutes, creating a sense of déjà vu. After 2,500 miles, days of preparation, and nearly two hours of sweat, it has come down to this: once again, Cornell has the ball with fifteen seconds left, needing three points to tie the game.

Brent Fisher dribbles the ball to halfcourt and calls time-out. When play resumes, Jackson checks out the Big Red's in-bounds set up . . . and calls another time-out. It has come down to a Cornellian trying to outsmart Cornell.

With the clock finally running again, Kevin Cuttica begins the kind of game-saving move all freshmen dream about. Only reality interferes, as his feet get tangled up. As he falls to the floor, he does the only thing that seems to make sense--he calls time-out. Jackson springs into action. "He has no time-outs! He has no time-outs!" He's right. It's a technical foul, meaning UNH gets two free throws and possession of the ball. The Big Red's hopes are dashed. UNH goes on to win, 56-51.

7:10 p.m. "It's a great learning experience. You just don't like to lose while you're learning," Thompson is telling a reporter. "We're a little disappointed now, but the trip has been a valuable experience, both on and off the court."

Of course, he says this before discovering that the Cornell team will be stranded in Chicago while the Syracuse airport is closed because of a blizzard, and before the takeoff from O'Hare is aborted because of a computer failure just as the plane is about to take flight, and before the team sits on the runway for ninety minutes only to be told they'll have to change planes, and before they finally arrive in Ithaca to find their cars buried under two feet of snow.

But there's always something to look forward to. In a couple days, the schedule calls for another road trip.

Brad Herzog '90 is a frequent contributor to Cornell Magazine.

Published in Cornell Alumni Magazine. Used by permission.