Flight Delays, Bus Breakdowns and Highway Pizza: Michigan’s Travel Adventures

Honk for hacky sack isn’t a new travel game the Michigan softball team invented. It was a spontaneous byproduct of making the best of a frustrating situation.

After their bus broke down along the highway in Black Mountain, N.C. on Wednesday, the Wolverines tried to find ways to kill time until they could get back on the road.

They pulled out a hacky sack and began kicking it around as big rigs whizzed by from a safe distance. The truck drivers roared their approval by sounding their horns.

The unexpected pit stop was part of an eventful 10-day road trip for Michigan that included plane delays, broken records, broken down buses, shutouts, blowouts, balloons and bourbon.

“I don’t think anyone will forget this spring break trip,” Michigan pitcher Alex Storako said. “It became kind of a bonding moment and that is what makes it so special sometimes. It was really just rolling with the punches because life can be a lot worse. You have to laugh and take those memories with you.”

Travel headaches are something nearly all teams experience during the season, especially schools from colder climates that spend the first month playing in warmer locales.

They crisscross the country on planes and buses while balancing academics and playing multiple games per day.

Michigan’s just-completed trip through North Carolina and Kentucky started inauspiciously when the team’s initial flight to play in the Duke Invitational was delayed because of a mechanical issue. 

Michigan head coach Carol Hutchins debated staying at the softball facility on campus and hitting instead of heading to the airport, but didn’t want to take a chance. So the Wolverines waited at the gate for updates.

“I saw the pilots walk up and I walked over and told them we have a game tonight. They said it was only an hour and 15 minutes to get there. I said good because we are going to try and make our game,” Hutchins said. “But by the time we landed it was already 7:30 and we still had to get our luggage. I didn’t expect Army to wait around. They had their own long travel day that morning.”

Once Michigan hit the field the following day, Hutchins regained the record as the all-time winningest coach in NCAA history with her 1,676th in a win over Northern Kentucky.

Duke, which is coached by former Michigan All-American Marissa Young, celebrated the achievement with balloons and a gift for her old coach and mentor before the Wolverines beat the Blue Devils.

“The game that we won that clinched the record I think was one of the worst games I have ever seen us play and win,” Hutchins said. “But this is a program record. It’s for Michigan softball and all those kids who played and all of my coaches, especially Bonnie (Tholl) and Jen (Brundage). They’ve been here for most of them.”

Hutchins remains humble about her place among the coaching legends of any college sport.

“It’s an honor to get to do the things I get to do in our profession,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of really good fortune. I am a lucky gal. As my mom always said, ‘You are the luckiest person.’ Things have just gone my way.”

But even the all-time winningest coach can’t avoid a bus breakdown and eating lunch on the side of a highway.

Michigan decided to bus from North Carolina to Lexington, Ky. to participate in the John Cropp Classic. 

The Wolverines added a game against Elon on Monday night to make up for the canceled Army game. After the win, the team bus showed signs of distress when the gas line broke and the Wolverines waited 30 minutes for a tow truck to arrive.

Following a Tuesday night game against North Carolina, Michigan boarded the bus on Wednesday morning for the roughly 7-hour drive to Kentucky. 

But it became much longer once the bus pulled to the side of the highway.

“We all wondered why we were slowing down,” Storako said. “We thought someone may be sick, but they told us the bus had broken down. Everyone was like, ‘Oh great.’ It just happened two nights earlier.”

The Wolverines were grateful their bus problems weren’t as serious as what recently happened to CMU and Louisburg College.

Before they exited the bus, Hutchins told her players about the time she hitchhiked across the country at age 22 to get to Yellowstone National Park. Then, she gave them a visual re-creation of the adventure.

“As we sat down on the highway, I was sticking my thumb out and they all laughed,” Hutchins said. “I was a wild, reckless person in my youth. Now, I am just a reckless old person.”

Stranded again, the Wolverines looked around and saw a park with softball fields a short distance from the highway.

“They all looked at me like, ‘No. We are not going to practice.’ They didn’t think that was a very good idea,’” Hutchins said with a laugh. “But a bunch of us walked down there. We had to climb through this thick ravine and it had prickly bushes and we climbed over a barbed wire fence to walk around the softball area and use the bathrooms.”

Given their lunch plans were out the window and the snacks were running low, the Wolverines improvised. They called for pizza.

Because delivering pizza alongside a highway is a safety hazard few companies are willing to risk, Michigan had the delivery driver meet them at the softball fields.

Kelsey Susalla, Michigan’s director of operations, navigated the tricky path to the fields with the money to pay the driver.

“I don’t know what in the world we did before we got a director of ops,” Hutchins said. “Softball can’t live without them. It’s a really good career track, but it’s a tough job.”

The Michigan players carried the pizzas over the barbed wire, through the thickets and up the grassy hill. They used a ball bucket as a makeshift table and devoured the lunch.

“The pizza ended up being phenomenal,” Storako said. “I don’t know if it was just because we were starving or it was really that good. I think we ate like 10 boxes in like 20 minutes. It was insane. We loved it. Pizza is such a treat when we get it.”

As they waited for a new bus, Michigan’s players passed the time by scrolling through social media, sharing stories, playing hacky sack, creating Tik Toks and possibly contemplating life.

After more than three hours, they were finally on the road again. They arrived at their Lexington hotel at around 8 p.m., roughly four hours later than expected.

“The kids were great. They were pretty worn out and slap happy by the time we got back on the bus,” Hutchins said. “I won’t be able to walk for a while with my body in a bus seat for that long at my age. My bad hip gets locked up for about two days.”

Given her 38 years as a head coach, Hutchins has experienced just about every scenario possible traveling with her program. Since the advent of social media, she’s had some entertaining back-and-forths with Delta on Twitter.

Hutchins tweets at the airline when issues arise, like the team’s recent delay. She warned Delta not to remove Michigan’s bags from the plane when it needed to shed some weight for the trip to North Carolina.

Her players tagged Delta when Hutchins broke the NCAA record and Hutchins even alerted Delta when their bus broke down.

“The kids like to have fun with it now,” Hutchins said. “I sometimes tweet at them to try and get free tickets.”

The latest transportation headaches had Hutchins contemplating the broader discussion about equity in women’s sports. Football and men’s basketball programs at some colleges get to fly charter to games while most other programs fly commercial or drive.

At the pro level, there’s been an ongoing dispute in the WNBA about the ability to afford charter flights.

“It’s part of student-athlete welfare at some point. We are making people do extraordinary things how many times every year,” Hutchins said. “Teams are taking red-eyes home from California to get back in time for school. At some point, you have to draw the line.”

The disparities were brought to light last year at the NCAA women’s basketball championship and the Women’s College World Series.

After an internal review, the NCAA has started to institute some changes as Title IX celebrates 50 years since its passage.

“There are some really big gaps and we are paying a lot of money for some of the sports and they are largely mens,” Hutchins said. “Universities are skimping in other areas and it’s time to call them out for what it is.”

Michigan ended its trip with a walk-off 1-0 win in the eighth inning against Drake on Saturday. The Wolverines showered and prepared for a nearly six-hour bus ride back to Ann Arbor.

Tucked in her travel bag was the gift Kentucky head coach Rachel Lawson presented Hutchins for her coaching milestone. It was something that seemed even more appropriate considering all that happened on the 10-day journey – a bottle of personally-engraved Woodford Reserve bourbon.

Through all the delays, hotel stays, bus mishaps and games, Michigan gained some grit and learned valuable lessons. The Wolverines will be ready for whatever comes next on the field, in the air or on the highways.

“I really like this group and I am really proud of them. There could have been a lot of grumbling, but they were just dealing with it,” Hutchins said. “In the scheme of life, it’s not that big of a deal, especially what we see now with the horror stories with Russia and Ukraine. It’s not that rough of a life if you just have a bus break down and have to wait a couple hours.”