Quaker Meeting House (QMH) wrote about the men's basketball team's travel travails down to the Virgin Islands last week. He ended the post with this: "It was so bad, that at some point it became epic. QMH is proud to be able to tell the story. Not that he'd ever want to do it again."
 
Who could have known then that, less than one week later, he would be doing it again?
 
On Tuesday morning, the Quakers were scheduled to leave the Virgin Islands having completed play at the Paradise Jam on Monday night. The team checked out of the Bolongo Bay Resort at 11:30 a.m. and took their taxis over to the airport, arriving around 11:45.
 
The group of 30 was scheduled to depart on a flight to Miami at 3:26 p.m., and then from there they would connect on a flight that would depart Miami around 7:40 p.m. and have the group in Philadelphia at approximately 10:30 p.m. A long day, but it would be good to be home. The team would practice on Wednesday, take Thursday off, then practice again on Friday ahead of its game with Stockton on Saturday at 2 p.m.
 
The group had no trouble checking in. Baggage check was a snap. The security line was short, and everyone was at the gate less than an hour after being dropped off. Plenty of time before the flight!
 
At about 2:45, American Airlines started boarding people. It was a smooth process, not the least because they had two gangways so people were boarding at the front and the back of the plane. (What a brilliant concept! Where has this been all of QMH's life?)
 
So there we were, everyone seated and strapped in. Overhead compartments were closed up and the flight attendants were in their spots. Among the men's basketball group, a number of comments were made about last week's nuttiness and how much better this was.
 
Well, you know what happened next.
 
Suddenly, the pilot was coming on and telling everyone that there was a problem with some wiring in one of the wings. Everyone was going to have to de-plane and go back into the gate while they waited for a mechanical crew to check it out. Apologies for the inconvenience.
 
So everyone moved back inside, and while there was some grumbling the overall mood was: hey, it's a mechanical error. I'd rather they realize they have a problem before we take off than when we're in the air.
 
Little did anyone know what lay ahead.
 
Based on the experience from last week, it was quickly apparent to everyone in the group that making our connection in Miami was not going to happen. Brad Fadem got working on the phone trying to make alternative plans—seriously, the guy deserves a significant raise based only on the travel days to and from this tournament—while everyone else passed the time. Guys played spades. Coaches watched film. Everyone tried to pretend they weren't hungry, not when hot dogs were $8, hamburgers were $13, and drinks were lukewarm at the only stand in the terminal.
 
Almost all the teams from the Jam were in the airport by mid-afternoon, but as planes left it became apparent that only one other team was scheduled for that 3:26 Miami flight with the Quakers: Old Dominion. In addition to the two teams, QMH would estimate there were another 40-50 passengers.
 
Hours went by. Planes landed, depositing the women's teams that will be playing their own Paradise Jam over the Thanksgiving holiday. Planes took off, ridding the terminal of more men's teams and other passengers. Soon, the only people in the terminal were those scheduled on American Airlines Flight 9240 to Miami.
 
Sometime after 8 p.m., Brad gathered the group together. A new plane was coming to pick everyone up. It was empty and would land around 11 p.m. We would board and take off around 11:30. American was providing hotel rooms for our entire group in Miami, and tomorrow at 10 a.m. we would fly a charter from Miami to Philadelphia. It was a small plane, just enough to fit the group, and there would almost certainly be one stop and maybe two for fuel as we flew up the coast. But ideally we would land in Philadelphia in late afternoon. Coach chimed in: no practice on Wednesday, short practice early Thursday morning before people could get home for Thanksgiving dinner, back on schedule for Friday as originally planned.
 
There was still the issue of food. What about food? What about drinks?
 
American eventually gave vouchers to the group, about $12/person, and folks got things like water and chips and sandwiches. (Side note: there are no water fountains in the terminal. Maybe for the better, given what we'd been told about the water throughout our time here.) Then word came that the good folks hosting the Paradise Jam were on their way with pizzas and drinks for both Penn and ODU. That rumor sustained folks for so long that eventually people started thinking it was just that: a rumor. Just when hope was lost, though, an airport employee came over to Coach Donahue and said, "are you Coach Steve? There are people outside with pizzas looking for you."
 
(This seems like a good time for QMH to thank the Paradise Jam folks for their incredible hospitality this week. They were first-class all the way. Our hosts, Mike and Patty Petersen, were especially great and really into making our team experience the best it could be. There were several conversations among our staff that we had the best hosts on the island. Also, it turned out QMH and Mike had crossed paths several years back, when QMH worked with Northwestern men's basketball land Mike had been an assistant coach with Minnesota. He's still a coach, with the WNBA's Atlanta Dream.)
 
There was a lot of pizza. So much so, there was no way two men's basketball travel parties were going to eat it all. (Think about that.) So Coach Donahue started walking around with a few boxes, offering pieces to other passengers, and they took him up on it. All was well. People were fed, and a new plane would be taking us home soon!
 
Brad walked past QMH and collapsed in the chair next to him. He had been going hard for several hours now, but the charter was approved and the manifest was signed and he could finally relax.
 
Except, well…
 
No sooner had he sat down when he was called up to the ticketing counter. And it was there that he was given some news: the new plane was eight seats smaller than the plane sitting broken on the tarmac. American was hoping our group might be able to provide eight people who would be re-booked on a flight tomorrow sometime. (You know, Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving.)
 
Brad fought that one hard, although QMH will admit he thought about it and he thinks some other staff members did, too. Assistant coach Joe Mihalich, in fact, went so far as to go up to the desk and try to negotiate a maximum return. American was offering a $470 voucher; he asked for $2,000. He was rebuffed dismissively.
 
Eventually, Brad came back to the group, tickets in hand. We were all set. An announcement was made, the new plane was on approach! It would be in later than expected, about 11:45, but it was almost here! Folks stirred to life, getting their things together.
 
Everyone was told to move from Gate 3 to Gate 4 for the new plane, literally a 30-yard walk if that. And we all watched through the window-walls of the airport as the plane came in for a soft landing, taxied back toward us and stopped right outside Gate 4.
 
And there it sat. And sat. And sat.
 
There was no movement. No one came out of the plane. No one went in the plane. No gangways were rolled up to the doors. In the meantime, everyone stood there waiting for something, anything, to happen.
 
Five minutes, Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. An hour.
 
In the meantime, QMH and others within the party had noted that they had officially been in the terminal more than 12 hours. In fact, it was well into Hour 14 when, as people are wont to say, all hell broke loose.
 
QMH's phone buzzed, and he looked down to see an email from American Airlines. He opened it, and imagine his surprise when he saw a notice that the plane sitting in front of him was not scheduled to depart until 7 a.m. on Wednesday. All around him, phones buzzed, people gasped, and there was a noticeable movement back to the Gate 3 counter where American personnel were stationed.
 
It was 1:09 a.m. local time. What was this nonsense?!?!
 
Attempting to calm down an increasingly hysterical group, one of the ticketing personnel jumped on the microphone and announced the following: "We have an update: The captain and crew are experiencing technical difficulties, and we will keep you posted as they try to sort it out."
 
Except everyone knew it was a lie. The evidence was in all of their phones.
 
People were exasperated. They were hungry, and there was no food. They were thirsty, and there were no drinks. They were being told different things by American, one message from personnel in the airport and another through their phones. People were quick to point out that American held this message until it became unrealistic to provide hotel rooms, which it probably legally had to do since it was their mechanical failure that had kept everyone on the island to begin with.
 
Shortly after the first announcement, another ticket person came on and announced that we could not take off because the pilot had "illegally" flown the plane over here and could not take it back because he was over his hours. (Later, QMH would hear one passenger tell another that he had talked to an American rep on the phone and the real story was that the pilot simply didn't want to fly back tonight, despite overtures from the rest of the crew. QMH figures he'll never know the real truth.)
 
Overall, it really was too much to take. QMH and others within the Penn group took to social media to voice their displeasure with American Airlines, and when American responded with an apology it engendered only more vitriol. Really, it wasn't pretty.
 
About a half-hour later, at 1:46 a.m. it only got worse. Another email from American Airlines. The flight was delayed again, to 9:30 a.m., with an arrival in Miami of approximately 11:30. That meant Penn's charter was, at best, pushed back and at worst cancelled.
 
Given the time of the night, Brad was helpless. He found a bench, laid down, and closed his eyes trying to get some sleep.
 
As for the players, they were once again absolute class throughout. The aforementioned spades game went on for hours, guys coming in and out throughout. When it looked like anarchy was going to break out among most of the passengers in the early morning, several of the players were amusing themselves by racing around the terminal in wheelchairs. Finally, when things had settled down and people tried figuring out how they were going to get a few hours of sleep in the terminal, it was the Penn players who came up with the idea of putting two benches together facing each other to create a sizable bed. It was ingenious, and several passengers followed suit.
 
Ultimately, of course, we were powerless. We couldn't force the plane to take off. We couldn't force the pilot to perform his duty. We couldn't force the ticket people to get us to our connections in Miami on time, whether they were for Philadelphia, or Norfolk, Va., or wherever all these people wanted to go.
 
Instead, once the furor died down—and it took some time, QMH will tell you—everyone got comfortable, stretched themselves across anywhere from two to four seats, and bunkered down for the night.
 
(QMH really feels for the Old Dominion group, by the way. The Monarchs have a game on Friday against Northern Iowa—who, by sheer luck of the draw, they also played on Monday in the Paradise Jam fifth-place game and lost to by a point. While UNI got off the island as scheduled on Tuesday and are already in Norfolk getting ready for Friday, their hosts remained behind on St. Thomas. Crazy.)
 
The airport started stirring around 7:30 a.m., and it was already pretty bright in the terminal due to the brilliant sunshine. Folks were in a better mood, having slept some of their anger off, and all signs indicated we would depart at the appointed time. Around 8:45 a.m., the crew walked through the terminal and they were greeted as heroes home from a war. The words "begin the boarding process" came out of the speaker system.
 
At the end of the day, though, these are the Islands and Island time is a very real thing. 9:30 came and went, and so did 10:30. Finally, at approximately 11 a.m., the official announcement came that it was time to board, and the process was quick and smooth. The doors were closed, the plane pushed back, and then finally…finally…we were on the runway and the engines were starting to roar.
 
As the plane sped down the runway, QMH took a second to look at the time on his phone. It was 11:29, and just before the wheels lifted off the ground it turned to 11:30.
 
QMH chuckled. Exactly 24 hours since the team had left the Bolongo Bay Resort to go to the airport for its trip home. It was almost too perfect.
 
The flight to Miami was smooth, if cramped, and after picking up our bags—well, all but three, but you expected perfection at baggage claim?—we were shuttled over to the charter lounge at Miami's airport where the team was whisked onto the tarmac for a chartered flight home.
 
QMH was sitting next to associate head coach Nat Graham on the charter, and just before the plane turned onto the runway to start its takeoff Nat pointed out a rainbow. We would be flying right toward it. QMH snapped a photo and posted it on Twitter with the following message: "Somewhere over the rainbow…is Philadelphia. There's no place like HOME!"
 
We touched down at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport at 6:44 p.m. Our bus was waiting and took us to campus. And finally, at 7:21 p.m. in Philadelphia, 8:21 Virgin Islands time—a full 32 hours and 51 minutes after starting our adventure—we were officially home, outside The Palestra. Something to be thankful for on this holiday weekend.
 
QMH doesn't ever want to go through this again. QMH doesn't ever want to fly with American again. QMH will be glad when the team gets back from Toledo in late December, meaning air travel for the season is over.
 
Suddenly, a conference season full of bus rides doesn't seem so bad.
 
***
 
QMH'S REQUIRED READING: QMH had plenty of time to read in the airport on Tuesday. Here's the piece that stuck with him the most, a haunting expose by Reeves Wiedeman on TheCut.com about a house in Westfield, New Jersey and the craziness it has created. That the case in question hasn't been resolved only adds to the intrigue.