Things weren’t as complicated as normal as 2024 kicked off.
There were two games, just like most football weekends. One college and one pro game.
But, things were backwards in order, and the travel was quite simplified.
Instead of a college game on a Saturday, on some spread out campus, with a mad dash to an NFL city, the new year started out with a Sunday NFL game followed on Monday by the college contest.
And, it just happened to be New Year’s Day, and it just happened to be a bowl game.
The best part of everything?
Both games were in the same city, and in the same stadium!
And the sprinkles on top of the cake – everything happened in Florida.
Tampa, to be exact.
Okay, that is all set up.
I flew to Tampa on Saturday for my pro game on Sunday, then stayed in town for the ReliaQuest Bowl on Monday. I even had a familiar Big Ten team to cover, as Wisconsin was there to play LSU, always a good team from the Southeast Conference.
Things got a first twist last Tuesday, when I was working at the Pacers game.
I got a text from one of my sisters-in-law, who lives in South Dakota.
“Word on the street is that you are in Tampa this weekend…”
This question caught me off-guard because Wendy is not usually chasing my schedule. She is plenty busy with her own.
“Yes, I am,” I replied, knowing that there was something next.
It was more off-guard.
“We are in Tampa already.”
Okay, this one is a puzzle.
As it turns out, Wendy, along with my brother Scott, and their two children, were in Tampa for the whole week on vacation. They had picked Tampa as a destination months ago, wanting to just go somewhere warm for a few days after Christmas.
So, there they were, and I was headed that way.
We had only found out about the NFL game 12 days early, and I was waiting on that assignment to then set up weekend travel. I had figured to be somewhere on the East Coast for our NFL game Sunday, with a New Year’s Eve nighttime flight to Tampa for the Sunday game. It was normal – do a game, fly somewhere, do another game, fly home.
All that means I didn’t have much time to catch up with them, but they changed their own schedule a bit. I landed in Tampa around 3 in the afternoon, and they left the beach in Clearwater and drove across the bay to my hotel.
We were able to spend a little time catching up, and they gave me a ride downtown to the other hotel Fox was using for the announcers and where I had a production meeting to attend.
I did find out that my niece Emma had a good semester at law school in Minnesota, and my nephew Gabe had a Dean’s List semester in his first go-round at South Dakota State. He is going to be the next engineer in the family.
It was great to catch up with them, and really great for them to give some of their precious vacation time just to see me.
Their return trip to South Dakota had a familiar ring to it Sunday night, as I found out they had to make a mad dash for their connecting plane in Dallas.
Been there, done that plenty of times at DFW.
So that left me with a little extra time in Tampa because I didn’t have a couple extra planes to catch.
It was nice to just stretch out a bit, get out in the relative warmth and not dash from place to place.
I even elected to spend New Year’s Night in Tampa, and flew back on Tuesday.
Now, I’m writing this note from the Tampa airport on Tuesday afternoon, so I’m hoping the first trip of 2024 will have an easy end in a few hours
If not you will hear about it next week!
The last weekend of the NFL regular season is coming up, and we found out yesterday that our end of season game is in Washington. We get our umpteenth Cowboys game.
There is a Pacers game on Friday, but nothing on Saturday, so travel will only be dependent on winter weather. Fingers are crossed.
I hope everyone had a good start to the new year, and I hope that all of your resolutions are still intact.
It’s back to “normal” now that the holidays are behind us.
Whatever normal happens to be…
Safe travels.
Jeff Nelson is a frequent contributor to the Journal Review and works professionally for Fox Sports assisting with NFL broadcasts and the Indiana Pacers.
