Away games are a requirement for practically all college athletes. Conditions may vary and athletes have to be able to expect the unexpected as they face competition away from the comfort of home.
Women’s rodeo competitor Amanda Eastlake prefers traveling for barrel-racing competitions. Luckily for her, the season starts off with five back-to-back competitions in Utah and Idaho.
“A lot of different people, we all travel together, condense vehicles and just convoy it all the way,” said Eastlake.
The Rodeo teams host a huge competition in the spring every year. Last year, it attracted 5,000 fans to the stands of Mesa County Fairgrounds. Eastlake said those can be more stressful than traveling for the team.
“You gotta make sure everything’s perfect and set up, and it’s just a lot more like, stress, especially on the coach because he’s like ‘I want it perfect,’” Eastlake said.
She said that all of the time and effort it takes to set up the competition at home makes traveling feel a bit easier, even though the nerves of going to a new place are still high.
In some conferences, away games can be a hostile environment for the athletes. Bruce Feldman is a long-time college sports journalist for “The Athletic.” In a piece from 2024 he ranked the toughest stadiums to play football at for the away team recalling a game he covered between the University of Kentucky at Louisiana State University. The fans hurled rude hand gestures at the opposing players’ bus, right before crowding around it and shaking it.
Eastlake and the CMU Rodeo Team have a much different experience when they’re on the road.
“It’s kind of funny. We all rival against each other but were also very family-like within our region,” Eastlake said. “Yeah, you’re competing against each other but everybody cheers everybody on.”
For track and field athletes Kaiden Major and Van Chambers, there’s the added stress of the unknown when traveling for meets. Their biggest concern is the quality of the facility at the schools they visit.
“I hate Pueblo,” Major said.
He throws for the track and field team, and thinks the Pueblo facility is disconnected from the rest of the events. He also noted that the ring they spin on while throwing is very slick, which makes it hard to trust.
Neither Major nor Chambers felt that there was a noticeable difference in their performances when at home or away. They both found that the improvements came over the course of the semester, and tended to occur in a gradual manner.
Though Major emphasized that Pueblo isn’t his ideal facility, Chambers said that conditions shouldn’t matter.
“I don’t blame my distances on the location. I blame it on how I performed because I gotta be ready for whatever,” Chambers said.
Whether it’s a small arena in Utah or a track in Pueblo, CMU athletes know travel is part of the job. For Eastlake, Major, Chambers and their teammates, competing away from home means staying ready, adjusting quickly and doing their best wherever they go.