The Lobo volleyball team will have a different player blog each day during our trip to Argentina. Check back each day to see what we are doing and for our Top 10 pictures of the day.
May 27 - Head Coach Jeff Nelson
This has been one of the craziest weeks I have had in my coaching career … we were heading to China and now I am sitting in Atlanta on the way to Buenos Aires. What a difference a day makes!
Let me go back to Thursday, May 22, and explain a bit … I was on my way back from the bank and exchanging money for China when I got a call from one of the coaches at Kansas State ( they were doing the same trip) saying the trip was cancelled and our travel company (Trans Sports) had declared bankruptcy. Wow what a shock … we all felt like we had just run into a brick wall. It was unthinkable for us that someone would do that to a bunch of students and fans.
After many phone calls and efforts to salvage the trip, we realized it was over. However, we have these amazing administrators at UNM who were willing to do whatever they could to help. (I'm very grateful to them!) I think our entire team and travel party owe them many thanks.
We decided to call some old friends to see if there was anything they could do to help us … so I called Cory and Tim at Bring It USA to see if they could put a quality trip together for us on short notice. These guys went to work and all of us are happy to be on our way to Argentina. I don't know how Tim did it, but he really came through for us.
The trip will be excellent in every sense of the word. I have done other trips with these guys that were fantastic. It looks like we will be playing 6 matches and enjoying some very fun things around Buenos Aires. The competition will be great and we will do our best to represent New Mexico … and compete like mad!!! We will be grateful for every second we have both on and off the court.
I do want to say how bad we all feel for the fans that were scheduled to come to China, but were not able to join us on the revived trip.
The team is in great spirits and really excited about the trip. I am also very excited to be taking my boys on this amazing trip, as well. There are 28 of us including Janice Ruggiero and her sister and son. We are just waiting to hear "All Aboard" for the last leg that will take us on a new and exciting adventure.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible and a huge thanks to Paul Krebs and Janice.
We are looking forward to arriving and meeting up with Jo, our guide when we land … see you in the morning!
Jeff
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