After the West Plains game on January 21, the last boys basketball game of the year, the team and coaches experienced an icy ride home, and an interesting one at that. Every 200 yards or so along highway 60, we could see flashing lights in the distance with cars off the side of the road due to the terrible road conditions caused by freezing rain and sleet. I knew it would be bad because right after the game, on the way to the bus, I ended up busting my rear on the ice. It was mostly my fault anyway for trying to ice skate. In between Cabool and Mountain Grove, the bus started flying out of control, though we were only going 30 mph, sliding across the lanes of the highway. Luckily, our driver pulled the bus to a halt before wrecking into the ditch. I wasn't very scared, and it actually seemed fun to me. I had never been in a situation like this before, so I just held on to the seat and enjoyed the ride. I thought it was kind of fun because the ditch was only 2 feet deep at the most. My dad had been following the bus in our vehicle, so when the driver announced that we weren’t going any further in the bus, I got off and road the rest of the way home with Dad.

The rest of the team waited patiently to be rescued. There were only 9 players left on the bus along with Coach Massey and Coach Hale. Les Moore tried to rescue us in another bus, but it slid off the road near Wehr Motor, and couldn’t reach us. After much debate, Tom Johns and Mrs. Williams decided that we should stay the night at Mr. Nelson’s house, which was not too far away. A parent in a pickup truck drove on the gravel road along Hwy 60 where we were stuck, and took the rest of the team and coaches over to the Nelson’s house. The Nelsons had the team sleep on the floor in the playroom, Coach Hale got the spare bedroom, and Coach Massey slept on the couch. I asked Cory Irsik about the rest of the trip, including the sleepover with the Nelson’s. He thought both the bus ride and the sleepover were cool. He liked the sliding around as much as I did, but he thought the sleepover was fun just by getting to mess around with his friends and having a huge sleepover! I asked J.D. Dobson what he thought about it as well. He said it was crammed and everyone kept acting like idiots, and he ended up staying awake until around 1:00 a.m! We can only imagine how much fun coach Hale and coach Massey had on that trip. That was a fun experience for me and the whole team.