Warriors fortify with 'local grindz' for big road trip

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

Quarterback Tim Chang will pack what he has come to call his "Holy Water."

Linebacker Chris Brown will lay on a supply of musubi and sweetbread. Slotback Craig Stutzmann will stock up on Zip Packs.

When you're going to Tulsa, Okla. — at 3,836 miles the farthest point from Aloha Stadium the University of Hawai'i has ever managed to win a road football game — there apparently are some things you just don't leave to chance, charter flight or not.

Especially now.

This, the third and last road trip of this season, looms as not only the longest but — for a Warrior team that could use a win to propel it into next week's nationally televised showdown with No. 8 Fresno State at Aloha Stadium — the biggest one.

Win during this hit-and-run journey across five time zones to the University of Tulsa and the Warriors are 4-2 and more than halfway to a winning record with six games remaining.

Win it and their confidence to take a shot at becoming the team to end the Bulldogs' Bowl Championship Series run, as well as becoming a contender in the Western Athletic Conference race, grows.

"In the Pac-10, the trips were more like an hour or two, sometimes just 45 minutes," said defensive tackle Wayne Hunter, who played at California. "Here, you're looking at seven-, eight-hour trips to Texas and Tulsa."

For these reasons — and a lot more of their own — the Warriors are putting their heads together this week, sharing and reviewing their accumulated knowledge from the experiences of an NFL-like travel schedule.

"The veterans are telling the younger guys how to prepare and how to travel," said Brown, now in his third year of embarking upon the expeditions known as road trips in the nation's most geographically far-flung collegiate athletic conference. "You have to share what you learn."

With a few of the lucky ones, Brown will share his stash of musubi and sweetbread. "You have to keep up your strength on trips like these," says Brown, the WAC's second leading tackler.

"When you travel like we do, you have to go with what works," said Stutzmann. For him, that means a late run to Zippy's before boarding the plane. "I pack two Zip Packs — one for right after takeoff and the other for when we get to our destination — because the airline food is getting smaller and it is really hard to eat it with those plastic knives they give you now."

Chang, meanwhile, prefers to read up on defenses he'll be facing and nourish the spirit. "My grandmother (Sophie Ke'a) gave me this bottle of water from her church to keep with me and I'll sprinkle a little of that. I think it has to help."

When you play for the Warriors, for whom every road game is a National Geographic Special unto itself, it pays to cover all your bases.