Playoff journey turns into unforgettable experience for Colonels, traveling group

The Nicholls football team figured it was going to be a long plane ride home following a 35-0 loss to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale on Saturday in the opening round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

The duration of the flight was its expected time of approximately two hours.

Waiting to get on the plane, that was another matter.

The charter flight with a travel party of 138 players, coaches, university personnel, and fans, was expected to depart Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois in Marion, Illinois, at 8 p.m. The plane didn’t depart the airport until almost 24 hours later.

“I was one of the first ones off the bus when we got there. Someone walked up and said it was going to be a while until the plane was ready,” said David Robinson, a senior receiver. “We were all thinking we were two hours early to the airport, anyway, so we were like alright, it will be more like 8:00 tonight. A while turned into 1:40 a.m., then 4:40 a.m., then 7 p.m., and then 4:40 p.m. the next day, then 20-something hours, we’re still there waiting to go home.”

“We just got to the airport about 6:00, 6:30. As soon as we get there, a guy had approached me and said that they were having some issues,” recalled Brian Wallace, defensive line and special teams coach at Nicholls. “I said, well, ‘I’m not in charge.’ So I sent them to our DFO (Director of Football Operations), thinking maybe an hour or so.

“She kind of handled all the operations on the side. So, I thought maybe an hour or something – just like normal routine plane maintenance.”

The Nicholls DFO, Katie Callahan, was then informed of what was taking place.

“They were having issues with the plane, and it might be a minute and from there it just kind of spiraled into hours and hours and hours,” said Callahan. “We had an issue with the plane when it came in. It kind of went off the runway when it taxied in. Because of that the pilot had to be drug tested.

“From there, there was some confusion if it took 12 hours for the drug test to come back or if it took 12 hours before he was able to fly again due to his rest period needed,” Callahan said.

A rescheduled flight on another plane was scheduled for a 1:40 a.m. takeoff.

“We got woken up at 12:30, thinking we were about to board. It was actually that the plane had canceled,” said Callahan.

Hearing nothing from the NCAA, which coordinates travel for schools in the playoffs, Callahan was informed by Shawn Rabideau, the manager of Midway Aviation, which is a Fixed Base Operator at the airport.

Nicholls athletic officials got in touch with the NCAA. NCAA officials, according to Callahan, had a conference call of nearly two hours dealing with the matter.

After the “rescue” (replacement) plane was canceled, the original plane was used to fly the Nicholls travel party back home.

The pilot who had flown into the airport, according to Callahan, explained that the reason he had trouble landing was that he had never seen a plane that size land at that airport before and that the runway was too small. That apparently led, in part, to the decision to cancel the replacement plane out of concern about landing a similar sized plane. Since the original plane was already at the airport, and enough time had passed for proper rest for the pilot and crew, it was able to fly the Nicholls group back home.

While the flight delays continued, there was talk of bussing the team home.

“I think that was where our frustration was coming from was that we had a plane that we were looking out the window at and we were trying to understand why you couldn’t just fly a new pilot in,” Callahan said. “We seemed to be repeating that question to all the people that we spoke to.

“At one point they were talking about bussing us home. We kind of shied away from that because that was going to be nine hours home and at the time that they were talking about this, all of that terrible weather was moving in a straight line across where we would be driving down to.”

Meanwhile, members of the Nicholls travel party became a captive audience at the airport.

“When we got to the airport, who whole travel party had just had what we call a ‘postgame meal,’ which is a meal directly after the game, so we were fed dinner,” said Callahan.

“We checked in, we got screened and we got put into probably like a 1,100 square-foot room,” she continued. “TSA had to close at 7:30. When they closed at 7:30, they locked us in that room because we had been screened and we were not allowed to come out.”

Tim Rebowe, the head football coach at Nicholls, had a different way of describing the room the 138 inhabitants were placed in.

“It was probably about the size of Rotolo’s Pizza on the inside of Rotolo’s, that size room. They had a bunch of seats in there and then a lot of just space and walls,” said Rebowe.

It was at that point where the Nicholls group had to remain in place with limited access to food or water and only two restrooms.

It was a frustrating experience, but not a harrowing one, as depicted by some on social media as word of the Colonels’ plight spread, according to those associated with Nicholls.

“We had food and water,” said Nicholls quarterback Pat McQuaide. “I saw something that we were without water. It’s uncomfortable, especially when you lose and the season is over, and to be stuck there was tough a little bit. I think we handled it really well.”

“Once they shut down, the TSA shut us down and locked us in there because they had to leave. We were there for the rest of the night. I thought our guys did a tremendous job handling the situation. We were never in any danger, so it wasn’t like a dangerous situation. It was just frustrating, and at times, uncomfortable. I was really proud of the way our players handled it. Coming off of a tough loss, you’re ready to get on the bus, get on a plane, you’re ready to get home and move on. Those guys handled the situation very, very well,” said Rebowe.

It was a sentiment shared by others.

“Despite the circumstances, I thought our team handled everything extremely well. I thought the leadership of our athletic director and their staff, our coaches, was well. I think the main focus was always about the players and everybody involved,” said Sean Murphy, Nicholls receivers coach.

“The silver lining in it is if I’m going to get stuck in an airport, I’m going to get stuck with that crew I was with. They were unbelievable, from boosters, to student-athletes, to the administration, cheerleaders, you name it,” said Jonathan Terrell.

For Terrell, the toughest part of the ordeal was a lack of communication with NCAA officials.

“I think I only got upset one time and it was because they had been giving us the runaround. We knew the information wasn’t going to be exactly what we wanted to hear, but if they would have just told us, we could have prepared better,” Terrell said.

Meanwhile, the players and the rest of the group found ways to amuse themselves.

“Right when we got there, I went to sleep. I probably took a two-hour nap,” Robinson said. “Once I woke up, we were up singing, dancing, just clowning around, like we do in the locker room, basically, with all those people there for six or seven hours.

“The next day, we just sat around, charged our devices, and tried to keep everything going. We didn’t have much of a service to communicate with people, but we found a way.”

“We ended up just kind of surviving and making the best of it. I think the players handled it extremely well,” said Wallace. “It’s kind of funny; I remember one of our players coming to me and said, ‘Coach, we should have done this as great team-bonding activity.’ I said, ‘yeah, I just wish we had done that in fall camp, not after the season is over.’

“The players, I think, made the best of it. They were karaoking, some of them had video games that they had on their phone or where they could play as a group. There were card games. I think the players handled it really well and took it as an opportunity just to hang out and being the best in a room of 140 people.”

Even parents of players and boosters took part.

“We just laughed. Jacob Parker Sr. and the kids in concert. Some of our boosters playing a game kind of like charades,” Terrell said. “Just cutting up and cracking up and starting to laugh about things.

“I told the players; you will have these memories for the rest of your life. You and your teammates will talk about this for the rest of your life.”

It’s the same message McQuaide received from his mother.

“My mom told me, ‘you have the ultimate story to tell all your friends.’ It’s something you can’t really make up,” said McQuaide.

After enduring COVID, hurricanes, and a spring season for what proved to be a six-year stint for Robinson at Nicholls, the ordeal provided unique closure.

“I kept telling people, ‘what a way to send out the seniors. Is this the best way out? We get a loss and then we get to sit in an airport for 22 hours,” said Robinson, with his long-familiar wide grin.