Ah, College Football! What’s better than going to see your favorite team play? Flying to the game is the best. One of my first trips involving flying to a football game was watching The University of South Carolina play in Orlando Florida against Miami University. I think it was the Tangerine Bowl but that was a long time ago. Miami University is in Ohio. Tickets were hard to come by as many people from South Carolina were going to the game. There were a bunch of people from here that wanted to go to the game but couldn’t find tickets. My dad was an alumni of Miami University and he had friends that still lived there. He called his friend in Ohio and with a phone call he had plenty of tickets.
Lots of people drove but four of us got in a plane and three hours later we were in Orlando. We caught a ride from the airport and walked in the stadium just as the national anthem was being played. The next day we flew back home. That was the start of flying to college football games.
Flying does have many advantages. Travel time is one. Not having to stay extra days away from home is another. There is absolutely no better site than taking off from the Clemson Airport and seeing taillights stretch from Clemson to Greenville and realize that you will be home in an hour and a half.
Air travel is not always easy though. We went to a bowl game in Atlanta once. After the game the weather got bad and we had to land in Florence rather than Sumter. Someone drove to pick us up but we still made it home without all the hassles of spending the night in Atlanta or having to face all that traffic.
Weather was sometimes the best part of flying. I was hired to fly some people to a Clemson game. It was raining and they didn’t have a ticket for me. The people I brought up said they could get me into the game as there was always someone selling tickets. Since it was raining I told them I would just stay at the airport.
They left for the game and I walked into the terminal. A guy asked if I was staying at the airport during the game. He said that they had a fish fry in the hangar for all the pilots that were staying at the airport. The fish fry was free and they had a big screen television and the game was on.
After the game my passengers arrived soaking wet and they had a soggy hamburger for me. I hated to tell them that I had been watching the game and eating fish and hushpuppies. They owned a twin engine plane and we made it back home in an hour.
There are lots of trips that we took that compressed travel time and made lots of great memories. Recently I was talking to some of my friends that went on these trips. They all agreed that the best part was the trip to and from the game.
One of my friends would fly up to Clemson just to tailgate. He would fly to the airport, catch a ride to where his friends were tailgating and when they would go into the game, he would fly back home. He got home could watch the second half of the game and then he could take a nap. Sometimes luck can be with you and You don’t have to spend all day just to have a little fun.
