Liberty Lacrosse Blog Season-Opening Trip (Notre Dame and Butler): Day 1: Wednesday, February 8, 2017

I took off of work around 3 p.m. to go do laundry and pack up for the first lacrosse trip of the year to Notre Dame and Butler. I packed up all the lacrosse gear I had and made my way over to campus. The team practiced prior to leaving, and they were all finishing up getting ready when I arrived around 5:45-5:50. We departed from the East Campus Field House just after 6 p.m. for Roanoke. The ride went smoothly, and I worked on finishing up a men’s tennis story to post.

We arrived at Cheddar’s at about 7:20 and had dinner there. I sat with our bus driver Gary, Danny and Casey (team managers) and Joey. Most of the time, I talked to our bus driver Gary, who actually drove the field hockey team to Old Dominion when I traveled with them in the fall. He told me the story of his disease he’s been battling and how he’s improved since the fall by going for treatment at the hospital at Duke.

He also told me how he and his wife host Liberty students on weekends at their home in Roanoke. He has a huge plot of land, and he and his wife enjoy taking students to local shops, Krispy Kreme, local restaurants, etc.

Dinner wrapped up just before 9, and we made the short drive over to the Hyatt. We checked into the hotel, and Group 1 was hit with the reality of knowing they had to be up super early to leave for the airport at 5:15 a.m. I was in Group 2, fortunately, led by Meghan. We had the freshman, some upperclassman, and Danny and Casey in our group-a fun group to say the least.

Once Danny and I got to our room on the third floor, we ran into “Get on My Level Lady.” This lady a few doors down, clearly perturbed by the sudden noise of college girls excitedly talking, peeked her head out the door and asked me how long we’d be staying. I told her just the night, and her response was, “Oh, ok. Because I’ve got some very important business meetings. I’m on a different level.” Whoa, I thought. I certainly can’t achieve that level. A little later, I saw people dressed in fancy clothes in a conference room and could tell there were some high rollers in this hotel.

The rest of the night was spent on Liberty Flames stuff and homework, lasting until around midnight.