CONWAY — Hendrix basketball player Nick Heathscott of Conway said that when the chartered team bus coming back from Texas started slowing down to 40 mph outside of Dallas because of sleet, he thought, “Dang, this is going to take forever.”
Forever turned out to be 31 hours.
The chartered bus carrying the men’s and women’s Warriors basketball teams left San Antonio in the rain at 6 a.m. Sunday after the teams played Southwestern University and Trinity College.
It should have been about a 10-hour trip. The bus pulled into Conway shortly after 1 p.m. Monday.
Men’s coach Thad McCracken said he was getting texts from Athletic Director Danny Powell that bad weather was coming and to spend the night somewhere if they needed to.
The Mountain Home Charter Service bus, with 33 passengers — players, coaches and a trainer, stopped at a Jack-in-the-Box in east Dallas for lunch about 11:30 — and, more importantly, filled up the 220-gallon fuel tank. The weather progressively got worse, and traffic finally came to a stop approximately 15 miles outside of Malvern on Interstate 30.
“We had no idea if we were going to be stuck there for 30 minutes or four hours,” McCracken said.
A harsh winter storm moved through the state Sunday, and the Hendrix teams were among hundreds stranded on I-30. At least three people died on Arkansas roads, but none on I-30, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The bus sat so long on an incline southwest of Malvern that the heat of the bus’s motor melted the road’s top layer of ice, making it difficult for the wheels to get traction.
A tow truck that was in the area hooked a chain to the bus to pull it off the ice and get it moving again. Then, after about 20 miles, the traffic jammed to a standstill because of multiple accidents.
“The next thing we know, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning and we haven’t moved,” McCracken said.
McCracken said he went to the back of the bus and told both teams, “There are things in your life you can’t control; this is one of them.” He gave them a pep talk about staying positive.
“We were fortunate enough to be on that big, nice charter,” McCracken said — with a bathroom.
The students had packed movies and board games with them for the trip, and a few snacks.
“We broke out some board games,” said Heathscott, a junior. He learned the strategy game Catan. “It killed time,” he said.
As it usually goes on these trips, the boys pick a movie; then the girls get to pick.
Women’s coach Emily Cummins said the group watched six or seven movies, including Rocky and Knight and Day.
Warriors senior Wyvonne Hawkins of Conway said she tried to sleep and read to pass the time.
When she woke up, “there were tractor-trailers all over the place, cars slipping and sliding — the scene was crazy,” she said.
Students used their cell phones and laptops until the batteries started dying.
The coveted snacks started dwindling, and they ran out of water and Gatorade that night, Heathscott said.
Heathscott’s uncle Capt. Chris Heathscott is a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard. The student and his uncle were in contact about the bus’s location so that National Guard soldiers could bring supplies, and Nick’s father texted the coach.
McCracken said that just about that time, a Humvee of guardsmen drove up beside the bus with cups, canteens of water and MREs.
“I can’t brag on the National Guard enough,” McCracken said.
The soldiers dropped off more food, water and a couple of blankets later at the same spot.
Nick Heathscott said he’d never eaten an MRE.
“They weren’t great, but it gave us something to eat,” he said, taking a break from shooting practice Tuesday morning on the basketball court at Hendrix.
Josh Graham of Clinton, also a junior, said he has a sister with the Army in Iraq, and she had given him an MRE to see what it was like.
“It definitely could have been worse,” he said.
Cummins said the players were reading the directions, trying to figure out how to prepare and eat their MREs.
“I think they had a good time with that — most of them had an appreciation that that’s what our troops have to eat on a regular basis.”
Being stranded just added insult to injury for Jaren Riley of Claremore, Okla., a sophomore on the team. He broke his nose in Saturday night’s game against Trinity when a player on the opposing team came down after shooting an air-ball layup, and his knees hit Riley’s nose.
Riley said his father was “texting me like crazy,” worrying about him.
“He knows how much I like to eat,” Riley said.
He said he was thankful for the MRE chicken, even if it was “rubbery.”
Riley dates a player on the women’s team, and at first, the togetherness was great.
“It kind of brought us together. She had more snacks,” he said, smiling.
But then, “I needed my own space for a little while.”
They’re still dating, he added.
Graham, Heathscott and player Dayton Sheridan of Aledo, Texas, came to the rescue of a woman whose car had slid off the road next to the bus. They helped the bus driver, Wayne Agee, 59, of Cedar Creek, Mo., and the coaches push the woman’s car back onto the road.
“It was nice to be able to help somebody else,” Graham said.
And it was nice to get off the bus for a while, Heathscott added with a laugh.
Even though the men’s team lost both games and the women’s team lost one, lots of lessons were learned.
Heathscott said he learned “not to complain about 12-hour bus drives with good conditions.”
Graham said, “Plan ahead, and don’t not finish your lunch when you’re not sure when your next meal will be.”
Riley said his grandmother admonished him when he was leaving for college to be thankful for everything.
“Every night, I thank the man upstairs,” he said. “Even with the broken nose and all this, there’s a lot to be thankful for. Just be thankful for what you have.”
Cummins, in her first season as head coach, said from now on she will make sure there is extra water and Gatorade on the bus and will suggest that students bring coats and extra sweatshirts.
“I feel like I’ve been in some pretty tight situations up in Ohio (as assistant coach) when I’ve been out on recruiting trips by myself, but I’ve never been in a situation like this where you’re stranded, and there’s just nothing, nothing you can do, so it’s definitely a first.”
McCracken praised the players for their composure through the ordeal.
“Both teams kept a very positive attitude through the whole thing,” he said.
“Our saviors were the National Guard and good ol’ Wayne,” McCracken added.
Riley and other players praised Agee for his professional driving and upbeat attitude.
“He never seemed to really panic or get frustrated,” Riley said. “He was happy the whole time.”
Riley said that when the group made it to Conway safely, the students started chanting Wayne’s name.
“They started cheering, ‘Wayne’s the man,’” Agee said. “That made me feel good.”
When the students got back to Conway, both teams were treated to a meal by Vice President of Student Affairs Karla Carney-Hall.
“She’s awesome,” Cummins said.
To lighten the mood after such a stressful situation, Carney-Hall bought gag gifts to give to some of the students, like Lifesavers for Graham and the boys who helped the stranded motorists and a gossip magazine for the student who “had the most drama” on the bus.
Agee will be back in Conway today to pick up the teams to head to Kentucky on Friday and to Indiana on Saturday, but he’s not worried about getting stranded this time.
“To be honest with you, that part of the country up there, they can handle a storm real quick,” Agee said. “Our state of Arkansas is a little bit slow getting back on them highways.”
However, on the next trip, “I will have a care package under the bus,” he added.