Coaches Tour 2009 revisited, Twitter style

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st ARG Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  A true sign the era of social media has arrived: you are shaking your head through a third-world customs process in an African airport and Mack Brown, the 58-year-old head football coach at the University of Texas, is standing next to you blogging from his cell phone.

"He's been connected this whole time," Ole Miss skipper Houston Nutt said near the end of Coaches Tour 2009, a morale-boosting mission that brought seven NCAA football coaches to U.S. servicemembers from May 27 to June 4.

The tour originated at McConnell AFB and covered more than 15,000 miles, four continents and a different military base every day. And whether he was in the Horn of Africa or on a bus in Iraq, no one seemed more online with the folks back home than Coach Brown.

"I Googled Coaches Tour and found Mack Brown's blog," Capt. Eric Junkins said about his online search during a late-in-the-tour stop in Kuwait. Captain Junkins, a Reserve KC-135 Stratotanker pilot assigned to the 931st Air Refueling Group, helped fly the coaches overseas.

The Air Force is starting to dip its toes into the vast pool of social media (Manas Air Base recently joined Twitter, for example). Events like Coaches Tour, Coach Brown proved, are invitations to dive right in.

That said, here's a brief, microblogesque recap of Coaches Tour 2009.

Three coaches--Troy Calhoun of Air Force, Jim Grobe of Wake Forest and Jim Tressel of Ohio State--arrive at McConnell AFB in the afternoon of May 27. Four other coaches--Mack Brown, Rick Neuheisel of UCLA, Houston Nutt, and Coach Emeritus Tommy Tuberville--are scheduled to meet up with the tour the next day at Scott AFB, Ill.

A sign of things to come: Coaches Calhoun, Grobe and Tressel hit the McConnell ground running. Jammed into the afternoon are a stop at the base clinic, a KC-135 tour/maintenance background session, some Explosive Ordnance Disposal demonstrations, a hands-on KC-135 simulator experience and a stop at supply for a body armor fitting.

What happens in the simulator, stays in the simulator: A coach at the controls puts the hydraulics of a KC-135 simulator to the test with an extreme nose first crash. There are a few suppressed grins when they and the instructors emerge, but everyone is hush.

Breakfast with McConnell Airmen: Coach Tressel orders an omelet, Calhoun grabs Cheerios and lowfat milk, Grobe (a W. Virginia native) gets eggs with grits. Not long before someone asks about whether NCAA football should adopt a playoff system. Calhoun seems all for it. It's complicated, says Tressell. Bowl games are the highlight of players' college careers.

Flying refrigerator: The 13-hour flight from Scott AFB to Ramstein AB is a rude KC-135 awakening for even some of the Airmen. Below the floor, the fuel has cooled to -160 degrees. Sleeping space is scarce. Coach Calhoun braves the icy floor cocooning himself in a sleeping bag in the walkway. We try not to step on him.

Sooner satisfaction: The owners of a maroon SUV at Ramstein don't know it, but the Oklahoma sticker with the upside-down longhorn on their back window reached the highest member of their target audience. The coaches were returning from visiting wounded troops at a military hospital when Tuberville spots the vehicle. "Hey coach," he says to Brown, motioning toward the sticker. "They're following me," Brown jokes.

Coach can play, and sing: Back on the bus again after a long autograph session at Ramstein when Neuheisel grabs the guitar he brought along. A slower tune he plays will put people to sleep, someone says, so he switches to a Jimmy Buffet number. Coach can play, and sing.

No sleep, no problem: Mike Whalen, Coaches Tour organizer from Morale Entertainment, described the tour schedule as "very aggressive." Tour coaches and staffers are feeling the effects of little rest at the next stop in Turkey. "Come August, we don't get a wink (of sleep)," says Coach Grobe, "so you could say we're getting an early start."

Kill the groundhogs: The tour leaves Turkey for the AOR, where the nonstop work routine makes troops feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. "Our mission is simple," Whalen said. "If we breakup Groundhog Day, it was a success."

Balad's biggest Buckeye fan: Col. Sal Nodjomian, mission support commander at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, "has been bleeding scarlet and grey" since he graduated Ohio State. His office proves it. Throughout is every sort of Buckeye embellishment, including a pennant, flag, mug, magazine, pictures, basketball hoop, books, towel, football, even an Ohio State afghan blanket, and for about 10 minutes on May 31, Coach Jim Tressel.

The coaches are in the building: The troops waiting at Balad for a Q&A with the coaches are pumped. Tommy Tuberville, who represented Auburn during Coaches Tour 2008, leads this year's group. He gets a very warm welcome before introducing the others. First up, Coach Brown. Texas fans get loud. More big cheers as Tuberville goes down the line. He gets to the end, pauses, looks at Tressel, and the Ohio Staters in the crowd are fanatic before Tuberville says his name. "Now we know what the warm-up guy for Elvis felt like," Neuheisel soon after says to the crowd.

The fog of Coaches Tour: During the Q&A, Tressel says, "I don't even know what day it is--is it Saturday or Sunday? All I know is it's about 172 degrees (outside)." Everyone laughs, but he's serious.

Air Force 21, Army 0: A sandstorm turns the first on-field action of the tour into an even dustier Dust Bowl. The Army "Stallions" have no answer for the Air Force defense. Coach Grobe, an honorary coach for the Air Force side with Tressel and Calhoun, even asks one of the winning Airman if he has any eligibility. "We started using up the clock," Neuheisel joked when later telling someone about coaching from the Army side, "and we were losing."

Calhoun's captains: The sandstorm at Balad pushes a C-130 flight to Baghdad far into the early morning hours of the next day. A seven mile taxi after the 130 lands doesn't help. Everyone is dead tired. Still, Coach Calhoun, former Air Force officer, performs an impromptu promotion ceremony for two young pilots. It's been that way the whole tour. All the coaches are class acts.

Summer Camp Victory: It's going on 0400 when a bus pulls up to one of Saddam's palaces--where the coaches are lodging. Impressive from the outside, summer camp on the inside. All the coaches are in the same room, bunk bed style. It's all part of the (military) experience, Tuberville says.

Drill instructors: Another sandstorm turns everything dark and dirty for some football drills with soldiers at Victory. But the soldiers are thrilled and the coaches even more so. Coach Brown takes the lead and is in his element. And its obvious Nutt and Neuheisel, both former college quarterbacks, still love to toss the pigskin. They shatter Groundhog Day with every pass.

Flying BBQ: A C-17 takes the coaches from Baghdad to meet back up with the McConnell '135 crew in Kuwait. "I wish we were taking that (points at C-17) rather than that thing (points at the 50-year-old KC-135)," Coach Nutt says walking from one plane to the other. The heat inside the tanker waiting for takeoff is intense. Everyone is showered in sweat. "We're gonna go home and try to get rid of the KC-135," Coach Brown somewhat jokes with a Navy admiral at our next stop in Djibouti, Africa.

Time to "Nutt Up": "Houston, we have a problem," Neuheisel says to Nutt during an Air Force/Army vs. Marines/Navy football game at Camp Lemonier. Neuheisel, Nutt and Brown are again honorary coaches of the side that gets shutout. Coach Nutt shows up as quarterback for the last play of the game. Time to "Nutt Up," as Neuheisel likes to say.

Jim Tressel who?: Wherever Tech. Sgt. Scott Piper's dad was in Las Vegas, I hope it wasn't in a casino. Cuz Lady Luck wasn't with him. Tressel wanted to tell him how his son led an Air Force/Army defense that shut out a Marine/Navy offense. Cell phones donated by Sprint carry Tressel's call from Djibouti to Vegas. But dad, a huge Buckeye fan, is not home. Piper's brother, a wrestler, is. Football isn't really his thing. Jim Tressel who?

Nutt Hutts: Probably the most memorable moment of the tour comes near the end. The unemployment rate in Djibouti is around 75 percent. Devastation surrounds Camp Lemonier, our only base in Africa. Coach Nutt says he wants to get a picture of the local living conditions. His intentions are good. "I want that picture the next time a player comes complaining that his mattress is too hard," Nutt says later that evening at our last stop visiting troops in Spain. But the small delay and almost international incident from all the commotion created becomes a source of infinite razzing for Nutt. Not one, but two unexpected X-ray/security checks at the Djibouti airport immediately after don't help. "Hey Houston," Neuheisel yells to Nutt when finally walking to the plane, "there's some more people who want a picture."

Mission Accomplished: Almost all the many Sharpies brought for autographs are used up by the time we head home. "What we put these coaches through is relentless," Tom Lee, another tour organizer from Morale Entertainment says, referring to the military-like, maximum-work, minimum-sleep schedule they have endured. Still, they happily sign the autographs and thank the troops right up until they head home from Andrews AFB. It was that way the whole tour. Class acts. All of them.

A Morale-Boosting Mission: The KC-135 crew and tour staffers get back to McConnell on June 5:
"How was your trip?" a pilot asks one of the staffers.
"Good, but a lot of work," he answers.
"Did the troops over there enjoy it?" the pilot responds.
"They loved it."
"Then it was worth it."
Yeah, yeah it was.