Dancing in the Rain

“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass but learning to dance in the rain.”  That’s the inscription that accompanied Britney Brown’s senior picture in our University of Oklahoma basketball team room.  As was our tradition, when each player graduated, she selected her favorite quote to accompany a photo of her in action while wearing crimson and cream.  Those inspirational posters lined the walls of our team film room where they breathed life into each season with an intimate and yet taunting call.  The film room resonated with the spirit of former Sooners, their selected quotes framing their careers and, in many instances, the very way in which they saw the world.  For me, they served as little green street signs that popped up when I least expected but sorely needed them most.

One season, years after Brit graduated, my team and I found ourselves in dire need of signage that pointed in a positive direction as we licked our wounds following a throttling in Storrs, Connecticut.  The 40 minute contest vs. the number one team in the country felt like that ride at the State Fair where you’re plastered to the walls by centrifugal force and then the floor disappears beneath your feet.  When you get off you feel kind of nauseous, a little disoriented, and more than a bit confused about what to do to feel better.  That’s pretty much how the nationally televised debacle left us. 

Little did I know, the rain had only just begun.

We were scheduled to fly out on December 1, the day following the game, on a late afternoon flight which was obviously less than ideal. Hanging around after a game is never much fun, even after a win, but it’s wretched after a loss. We arrived at the airport early the next day, partly because we had nothing better to do and partly because we traveled as a small tribe and moving anywhere took a while. As we lazied our way toward the check-in kiosks, we got smacked with some sobering news: our flight to Dallas had been cancelled. The letters were in upper case and they were red.

Suddenly, the rain shower picked up speed.

Madness—ours and everybody else’s within earshot--ensued.  Trying to re-book a cancelled flight is hard enough when you’re flying alone, or even with your family.  But re-booking a travel party of 28? There’s absolutely zero chance you’re leaving as you came. The available options were slim and none, with my favorite piece of disconcerting news being that the next flight to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma from Hartford, Connecticut would be five days later on December 6.  

Five days? Thousands of miles from home, with no clean underwear and wounds as jagged as pit bull bites? No way. The rain that started as a sprinkle had turned into a pour.

We were game for any option the airline could dream up. Thanks to the valiant efforts of two harried United workers, we hustled 8 players who had early morning classes the next day, and me as the chaperone, through luggage check-in and on through security in a frantic attempt to board a plane to Washington D.C. that would allow us to make our original connection in Dallas to get home to Oklahoma City.  Unfortunately, one-way tickets printed at the last second sent up red flags which got us detoured and wanded and air-searched and residue tested. They did everything but take our blood.  We endured it all only to breathlessly arrive at gate B8 to a closed cockpit door and a too-bad-so-sad flight attendant who seemed less than impressed by our plight.  We slugged back to the rest of our travel party, who lay sprawled across the floor beyond the check-in counter, dragging our tails and cursing our fate.

Retrieved from https://trakt.tv/

It felt like I had stepped into an episode of Gilligan’s Island. You know the ones where the Skipper and the Professor cook up a plan to wind their way through the jungle only to ultimately back right into each other at the very spot where they started.  All that was missing were the coconuts.

The pouring rain had turned into a deluge as the storm parked above our heads.

Retrieved from https://www.exp1.com/

We had to find a way to get our team back home. There was an option at LaGuardia in New York City: a 9:10 p.m. flight that would get us to Dallas where we could bus home.  And though that scenario set up an approximate 3:00 a.m. Norman, Oklahoma arrival-- IF every single thing went off without a hitch--it felt like a gift from the heavens. Only one small hurdle stood looming in the way--how to get this Nike village and their mountain of bags to New York City from Hartford, Connecticut while the clock was tick-tocking like a bomb.  

After almost half an hour of phone work, we found a bus company who said they could make it happen.  Forty-five minutes later we jumped on a bus with exactly three hours in which to make a two-and-half hour drive along one of the most highly populated thoroughfares in the country.  We frantically snapped a “trip-from-you-know-where” team picture, plugged in a DVD (these were the days before streaming and smart phones that did more than call or text) and began scooting through the traffic via off ramps and on ramps courtesy of an expert, experienced driver who aimed to deliver on the promise he had made. As the bus squealed in to LaGuardia, we spilled out of it like soldiers overtaking enemy grounds. We had only minutes to get ticketed, check our bags, and race through security to catch the outbound plane.

Unfortunately, the rain would not subside. Our flight was delayed until 10:45 p.m. That’s when we made the executive decision to dance.  

Our director of operations got on the phone and found us a tour bus, We went through ticketing, checked our bags, grabbed Wendy’s sandwiches, and went back out the same doors we had just come in. We were headed to Times Square! 

You would have thought our guys were in the audience at an Oprah show where we just found out it was the Christmas giveaway episode. They all ran to the bus as if the queen herself had just shouted, “And you get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car!” The air on the bus pulsated with every song from “Jingle Bells” to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as our players sang at the tops of their lungs while we snaked our way uptown.  You could almost feel the wounds scabbing over as they laughed and squealed, echoing every major street we crossed and every building that came into view.   Our gem of a bus driver let us out a block just off Times Square giving us precisely three minutes to run into the heartbeat of the city and take a picture that can’t capture how it feels. Our guys, most of whom had never been to New York City, much less the convergence of Broadway and 47th, ran around like little kids on Christmas morning. I couldn’t help but think how perfectly the day had come unwound. 

 Playing “Catch Phrase” in the airport and singing Christmas carols in route to Midtown Manhattan doesn’t make you better than Connecticut.  But the brawn you build as you turn potentially lousy moments into extraordinary ones is the stuff that makes you better than you are.  And we needed that on the day after the shellacking more than we needed a block-out drill.  

As we sprinted toward Gate D to finally board a plane bound for the Midwest, I couldn’t help but think about that little green street sign I carry around in my head, courtesy of Britney Brown.  It rains a lot over the course of a life. We can hunker down and wait for the shower to pass or we can make the decision to dance. Dancing rarely disappoints.

P.S. Singing in the Rain