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Beavers are in it for long haul By Kip Carlson SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. � Packing all the equipment to outfit a 108-player football team for a 13-day trip all boils down to one very simple rule for Steve McCoy, Oregon State�s equipment manager. "The bottom line is, when you�re ready to leave and you�re going to turn the lights out, look behind you," McCoy said. "If there�s anything left, take it with you." Moving the gear necessary for eight practices, a light walk-through workout and the fifth-ranked Beavers� Tostitos Fiesta Bowl game against 10th-ranked Notre Dame doesn�t quite approach the logistical complexity of D-Day, but it means significantly more preparation than your normal Pacific-10 road game for McCoy and Barney Graff, OSU�s head football trainer. "We tried to take everything we have in the Valley Football Center and set it up in the hotel so we have a training room in there, so we can take care of anything that comes up from a medical standpoint just as if we were in Corvallis," Graff said. McCoy and assistant Art Carll have a staff of seven student managers. The Beavers also have team physician Dr. Craig Graham and several student trainers. Graff, in his fourth season at OSU, prepared for several bowl trips while working at Syracuse and Kansas State. McCoy, also in his fourth season with the Beavers, got his first taste of packing for a bowl trip when Oregon State played in the O�ahu Bowl in 1999. But nothing to this magnitude. "This is a big, big operation," he said. "You�re talking about 108 players, 60 staff members just related to football, not to mention everybody else involved that I help with in different ways. "This is the biggest undertaking I�ve had." McCoy and Graff begin with the list of materials needed for a normal road game. "Basically, your weight doubles and your supplies double," McCoy said. "You look at your whole picture and say, �What do you use the most of? Where are you going to be? What�s the climate going to be? What kind of surface are you practicing on? How much of it are you going to need?� "To be honest with you, I don�t think I really slept the seven days before we left because what you do is, you just sit there at night pondering �Have I got everything?�" And everything means everything � like shoelaces, chinstraps, buckles, helmet screws, the right kind of socks for the coach. And, he said, "What happens if we change our minds and want to wear this uniform as opposed to that uniform? Are the orange pants coming out? Well, we don�t know, so we�d better pack them. You take a look at all those situations, and say, �If it�s possible, it�s packed.� And that�s what we do." For a regular-season road trip, the Beavers usually ship about 5,800 pounds of gear, including video and training equipment. For the Fiesta Bowl, McCoy and his staff loaded almost 9,000 pounds into a pair of tractor-trailer rigs that left Corvallis two days before the team�s Dec. 21 departure. In addition to the on-field equipment needs, McCoy�s department is also involved in obtaining the bowl-related souvenirs for players, staff and others. The job is fun, McCoy said, but he�s not sure people realize just how much it involves on a day-in, day-out basis. For Graff, the experience of relocating the training room for a bowl game has gotten somewhat routine. "The first time is hard," Graff said. "The second time is easier, the third time is easier � and it�s an enjoyable chore." This year, Graff began getting ready for the trip on Dec. 4, the day after the Beavers found they�d be playing in the Fiesta Bowl. He took about a week making out a list of items to pack; then he double-checked that against the lists he�d kept from prior bowl trips. Graff talked with Oregon State�s coaching staff about what type of practices they had planned for each day and considered how much tape, prewrap and padding a similar practice in Corvallis would require. "Then it didn�t take us that long to start pulling stuff off shelves and out of the storeroom," he said. The goal of the training staff is to prepare for almost any possible medical situation. OSU has equipment for treating injuries, over-the-counter drugs and other medications on hand. Oh, and it has aspirin just in case keeping track of it all produces a headache. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.