Nicholls State football lost its FCS playoff game to Southern Illinois 35-0 on Saturday afternoon. The Colonels did not return home to Louisiana until late Sunday evening.
They got stuck in the airport for 24 hours!
Nicholls players, coaches and staffers arrived to Veterans Airport in Marion, Illinois around 6:15 p.m. after the First Round loss. It has a charter flight booked for around 7 p.m.
However, bad news broke as they were going through security. According to Director of Media Relations Jamie Bustos, the stemmed from a sharp turn.
The pilot that was scheduled to fly the Colonels home made too sharp of a turn upon descent and went off the runway. FAA protocols required a mandatory screening of drugs and alcohol for the pilot as result of the incident. Results can take up to 12 hours.
Unfortunately, the Nicholls State football team had to wait at the airport.
Fortunately, another plane would be able to get them back to New Orleans around 1:40 a.m. While waiting around for seven hours is not ideal, it could have been worse.
And it was!
Players and crew were locked inside of a waiting area at the airport when security retired for the night. Not long thereafter, the Colonels learned that another plane was not coming.
No charter buses were available. All of the local hotels were unable to accommodate a party of around 150 people. There was nowhere for them to go!
Everyone slept on the floor or in chairs. They ran out of food and water.
Of course, the NCAA was of no help.
Our admin made calls to the NCAA and the people in charge of our travel since it’s an NCAA event and they hand all travel, but we weren’t given much guidance due to the time of night.
— Jamie Bustos
Airport employees returned around 6:00 a.m. on Sunday and unlocked the waiting area. Only at that point were people finally able to leave to go get food and/or water.
The saga was not over! Nicholls was informed that the next available flight would not leave until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. That was still 10 hours later.
Around that time, Southern Illinois got word of the ongoing situation with their opponents. Head football coach Nick Hill sent “all kinds of fruit, snacks and drinks” to help the Colonels out.
The Southland Conference also made sure that the team was properly cared for.
Nicholls finally got on a plane around 5:30 p.m. Its college football team was stuck in an Illinois airport for 24 hours.
They finally got back to campus around 9:30 p.m. — more than one full day after the clock hit zero in the fourth quarter.