5 hours on a sports bus trip in South Dakota

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Residents of Pierre or Aberdeen may be used to traveling a few hundred miles in a day. That includes their high school sports teams.

The Aberdeen Central High School football team will travel at least 1,400 miles this fall. The volleyball team will travel at least 3,000 miles. The football and volleyball teams at T. F. Riggs High School in Pierre will travel at least 4,000 total miles.

Full marathon canceled due to high heat

A play day could mean a 14-hour day for a student-athlete.

“Kids may check out of school at 11:30 a.m. and get on a bus to head out to play and after playing they are returning at 12:30 or 1 in the morning,” said Brian Moser, the athletic director at Pierre.

But if the nearest schools have a third or even half of your high school enrollment, it’s hard to avoid the long days and miles of travel.

“Travel is a necessary evil,” said Dawn Seiler, the athletic director at Aberdeen. “If you are a AA school you want to play a AA opponent.”

Most small schools near Aberdeen don’t really want to play Aberdeen, Seiler said.

Pierre and Aberdeen are in class 11AA for football which includes the four public schools in Sioux Falls, the two in Rapid City, as well as clusters of schools near those two cities and also Huron, Mitchell and several other schools. A road trip to Huron for Pierre is about 116 miles. A road trip to Huron for Aberdeen is about 93 miles.

The Pierre and Aberdeen school districts partnered several years ago to package away trips for volleyball and football when possible.

“We do that when we play in Sioux Falls or Spearfish or Sturgis. As many times as possible to make it work,” Moser said.

The Pierre football team may play on a Friday and Aberdeen will play on a Saturday.

“You make one trip instead of two,” Seiler said.

That type of schedule takes the cooperation of four schools because the home team also needs to agree.

Pierre is roughly 193 miles from Sturgis or about a three hour and 15 minute trip. Aberdeen is about 355 miles from Rapid City or five hours and 17 minutes.

Athletic directors often discuss travel, Seiler said.

“There is no solution because of where the towns are located in South Dakota,” Seiler said.

Even middle school fall sports are affected

“For sub-varsity and middle school it can mean getting on a bus and traveling too,” Moser said.

Pierre has high sports participation numbers from 7-12.

Moser said there are 188 students in football in grades 7-12 this fall.

The district has two middle school football teams and four middle school volleyball teams.

It’s difficult to play a nearby smaller school when the Pierre middle school has that many teams, Moser said.

Middle school teams do not play a full varsity-type schedule in Aberdeen, Seiler said.

At that level, “the teaching and coaching is equally important as the quality of opponent,” Seiler said.

Aberdeen will try to schedule some road games closer to home for fall middle school sports, she said. But, with multiple teams in seventh and eighth grade for some sports, the school needs to schedule to make sure teams all get playing time. The travel schedules will rotate.

Nearby schools can be an option, but Seiler said, schools do have an obligation to consider size, caliber of play and avoidance of injuries.

Buses and planning the road trip

Moser has the contact information for many athletic directors on his school’s game routes.

Although Pierre has a reliable transportation provider to bus teams, “As an athletic director I know some things happen,” Moser said.

Moser may contact another athletic director for help if a bus breaks down.

“I think most people would be surprised at the number of buses we have out (each week),” Moser said. “This Saturday we have four buses out. We can get to six or seven on one single Saturday.”

Buses used for fall sports can be a motor coach, a yellow school bus, a smaller style passenger bus or a suburban.

“It takes a lot of organization structure and planning,” Moser said of sports travel.

Aberdeen student-athletes travel “nearly exclusively on motor coaches,” Seiler said.

There could be as many as five or six motor coaches headed out from the school in a given day, she said.

But, “The school buses aren’t the old style school buses. They are so much better. They are warmer and safer,” Seiler said.

Many middle school teams will travel on a yellow school bus because those road trips can be fewer miles. The buses don’t have a restroom so arranging for a restroom stop is part of the planning, Seiler said.

Moser said a stop can be scheduled on longer road trips. A stop can be cut if the traveling is slowed by weather conditions.

The school wants teams to eat before the bus leaves and they should be fed before or on the way home, he said.

Often students will use the miles and hours on the bus to do homework, Moser said.

Most Pierre high school teams have a cumulative team grade point average of at least 3.0, Moser said.

Travel is here to stay

As long as school districts remain in their same locations, team sport travel will continue.

It will also continue as schools encourage students to get involved in sports or other activities that put them on a bus.

Moser said Pierre takes pride in its high school sports and activities participation.

“Well over half of the student body participates in sports and another fourth participates in fine arts,” Moser said. “We’re doing pretty good here.”

“In Aberdeen, we are used to it,” Seiler said of travel. “The only option is to not have kids on a team and that’s not a good option.”