Bowl location poses logistical challenges

NASSAU, Bahamas — For Megan Prunty, Tom Hersey and Matt Meyer, the pressure of the two-minute warning will begin at about halftime of Friday’s Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl.

That’s when this team of UB football equipment managers will start packing up whatever equipment isn’t still being used during the game to get it loaded onto a truck in preparation for the long journey back to UB.

They are the real unsung heroes of the UB football team.

While the invitation to the Bahamas Bowl was a dream come true for the players, it posed quite the logistical challenge for the equipment staff.

“It’s much different than a normal road trip,” said Prunty, UB’s assistant athletic director for equipment.

That’s because for this bowl game, Prunty and her staff had five days’ notice to load 10 wheeled cases and 10 pallets of equipment totaling 8,800 pounds onto a tractor trailer, which set out for Miami on Dec. 6. From there, it was loaded onto a boat and shipped to the Bahamas.

The equipment ferried includes footballs, extra shoulder pads, helmets, gloves, T-shirts, shorts, hand shields, agile bags and the 1,000-pound coaches’ communications system, among other items. All of it had to be carefully documented for customs.

“We had to create large manifests where you had to value everything. So if we were bringing five pens we had to say five ball point pens and they were 25 cents apiece and they were going in case one and case one was on pallet five and it was 3 feet by 6 feet by 2 feet and it weighed this much,” Prunty said from the lobby of the Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas resort while enjoying one of the few days off she and her team have had since July.

“Normally, it would be like an ordinary road game where we pack all the equipment that we need, but this is so unique because everything has to be shipped internationally and go through customs, so anything we could ship early we did,” said Meyer.

The craziest part of all of this is the fact that before the game even ends on Friday, Prunty and her staff, which includes a team of students, will be scrambling to pack everything back on the truck.

“After we win and the team’s celebrating on the field, we won’t be on the field because we’re going to be packing as much as we can as fast as we can,” Meyer said.

Then, Prunty and Meyer will head to the airport in Nassau, where they’ll ensure that all the luggage for the entire travel party — which totals more than 100 coaches, family members and staff — gets transferred to the plane heading back to Buffalo.

After that’s all done, they’ll board the team plane bound for Buffalo, which is scheduled to depart from the Bahamas at about 7 p.m. Friday.

“We have to pack everything up exactly the way it shipped back down here and we have a very tight window because we only have that hour and a half between to get on the plane ourselves, Prunty said. “It’s all being picked up from the site and shipped back, and we won’t see it until the third week in January.”

“And then when we get back we’re on vacation until Jan. 6,” Prunty added.

Although it may have been a logistical nightmare getting everything to the Bahamas, the Bull can take comfort knowing that the shipping company they were paired with has a good track record.

“We were assigned Leisure Travel and we were told they have serviced the winning team every year,” Prunty said.