Tales from the volleyball state finals

Going to the state finals in any sport is always an exciting adventure. Just ask the parents, and especially Becky Bruning, who was sharing an elevator ride going down at the hotel in Kalamazoo, on the way to the semifinal volleyball games at Western Michigan University.

The elevator had coach Kristy and Al Smolinski, Becky Bruning, Mary Fairbanks, and Curt and Annette Vogelheim as passengers, when it suddenly had a mind of its own and stopped at the designated floor, but refused to open its doors. The hotel was brand new, open only a month, and the ?bugs? must not yet have been worked out. Dick Hanson, another volleyball parent, stood in the lobby opposite the clamped shut doors, hearing the loud pleading voices yelling for help. According to those present, Bruning, who absolutely has bad feelings about elevators in the first place, totally ?freaked out.?

?I?m really scared of elevators,? Becky said. ?I thought I was going to pass out,? she lamented. ?It wouldn?t go up and it wouldn?t go down,? Mary said. ?We were in there maybe five minutes, and we were definitely panicked…especially because Becky was so upset.? So how did ?hardware man? Dick Hanson open the doors?

?YES. I DID open the doors for them,? Hanson said quietly. ?Don?t tell them…I just pushed the button on my side and the doors opened! ?But they think I did something magic. When they came out they were all wide-eyed. They looked like a bunch of wild animals!? Hanson commented. It turned out that over the few days? stay, the elevator continued to act up periodically, leaving the stairwells as the preferred between-floor mode of transportation on occasion.

?I sure won?t use that elevator again,? Becky said as she became a devoted stairstepper the remainder of the stay. Immediately following the game, unhappy girls tried to calm their disappointment. Sharon Bunton, the coach?s mother, ran up to Hanson, and lamented that she had forgotten to bring the long-stemmed roses for the girls. The flowers have become a tradition at post-season games. ?Ohhhh,? she wailed on, ?Dick, I forgot the roses…oh, no!? The camaraderie between girls and parents on these end-of-the-season trips creates lasting memories, and parents have memories of their own. ?Oh well,? Dick said, ?I?m not going back for them…? Quietly he said off to the side, ?Just wait until she goes to look for her suitcase…I hid it behind the chair in the hotel room.?

DICK WAS on a roll, as he began to tell of some of the antics over the three-day stay, as Sharon walked away regretting her forgetfulness over the roses. Dick is a great practical joker, so he called one of the rooms with some of the females in it, and told them he was hotel security and they were checking up on some guy who was accosting the women patrons. His instructions included they should be aware there would be a room-by-room search conducted and to stay in their room.

The ?suspect? was known to knock once, followed by two short raps. With the scene set, Dick hot-footed it down to the their room and performed the ?one-knock followed by two-knocks? routine, then listened carefully. ?You could hear all this yakking until I knocked,? Dick said. ?Then there was dead silence, before somebody scurried over to the door, and you could hear them quickly inserting the chainlock into place!? as Dick hooted with laughter. One could only surmise the difficult time the volleyball team had looking after their parents over the weekend. On the list of ?things gone wrong,? there was one dad who locked his keys in his car at the semifinal game and had to call road service…at a hefty fee. Speaking of keys, the ?c

ard-keys? at the hotel gave some patrons a fit, when they could not be made to work under close scrutiny of others trying to help out…but did operate just fine in some other patron?s room.

According to Hanson, he heard from another parent on Sunday, when he complained to Dick that he hadn?t gotten home until 1 a.m. Sunday morning, after leaving Saturday morning for home. ?He got all the way to the Chicago skyline before he realized he turned the wrong way onto the expressway leaving Kalamazoo,? Hanson said with a grin.

Everyone did arrive home in Rogers City safe and sound. Next stop, spring sports!

by Gail Maggi, Staff Writer

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.