As the majority of the country experienced this past week, holiday travel can be a nightmare. Airports are crowded, tensions are high and, most importantly, the weather seldom cooperates. The same is true for college football players trying to get to their respective bowl games.
Thankfully, though, it’s also the season of giving. Which is where a college basketball coach helped get football players to where they needed to be.
Days ahead of his team’s Sun Bowl matchup with UCLA, Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi shared a story of how three of his players got stranded in Dallas on their way to El Paso. Thankfully, UTEP men’s basketball coach Joe Golding found himself in the same position, so he and his family rented a car and gave the players a much-needed lift.
“They got here late last night,” Narduzzi recounted on Monday. “So I just wanted to give them a shoutout to those guys. It just goes back to the hospitality.”
Narduzzi said he had never even heard of, let alone met, Golding before this fortuitous encounter. That makes Golding’s offer to drive the players all the more generous. Even if the two groups were heading in the same direction, it’s still a nine-hour drive.
The Panthers will square off against the Bruins on Friday at 2 p.m. ET—perhaps Golding will be in attendance offering even more support for Pittsburgh now that he’s a newly-converted fan.
