NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Long before the Commodores arrive in Hawai’i on Sunday, much of their equipment needed for their Aug. 27 season-opener will have already landed on the island of O’ahu.
The Vanderbilt football equipment staff begin preparing for the long voyage at the start of preseason practice in late July. And, on Monday, the first load of Vandy football gear departed from Vanderbilt Stadium toward Honolulu.
“It’s been a huge project, but it has been broken up a little bit, so it doesn’t feel quite as large as it actually is,” Vanderbilt sophomore Josh Sacca said. “We’ve been packing trunks intermittently here and there throughout the last two or three weeks.”
Sacca, from New York City, is part of a team of student workers who have been instrumental in making sure the Commodores have everything they need when they face Hawai’i on Aug. 27. The final push in their efforts came last weekend when many stayed on campus until late Friday night making sure the decals on Vanderbilt’s helmets were placed just right, then returned Saturday and Sunday to help organize the first shipment of supplies.
On Monday, a truck full of 19 pallets, along with a pair of stationary bicycles, was loaded onto a truck and driven to Dallas. From there it was placed on a plane and flown to Honolulu.
“That has been a lot. We have been working a lot of shifts and packing everything, communicating what is it that we need and we’ve been making a lot of lists, double checking with each other that we packed everything or what else is needed,” said Alondra Sandoval, a Vanderbilt sophomore from Vero Beach, Florida. “We did a lot of trunks, filling up the trunks with socks and gloves and everything else we need.”
Vanderbilt director of equipment Jordan Hunt arrived in Hawai’i to begin preparing for the Commodores’ arrival and to ensure the team’s equipment arrived intact. Vanderbilt director of football equipment Trent Pearson has remained in Nashville with the team and will instruct the logistics of getting all the remaining gear to the Pacific island.
Hunt said the Commodores’ trip out to Colorado State in 2021 somewhat helped the program prepare for this year’s voyage, but getting the football team’s equipment to Hawai’i has been a whole different level of an undertaking. He also profusely thanked the Vanderbilt students like Sandoval, Sacca, Sarah McLoud, Katey Parham, Harmony Wang, Jessica Hairston and Connor Bosse, along with students from outside Vanderbilt like Jack Arrington, Devin Bryant, Brandon Hourigan Jr., Chase Ward, Dylan Swope, Madison Blevins, Rob Funk and Bryshawn Jemison, for all their hard work and dedication toward the cause.
“We’re going because of work, but we want to try to have some fun,” Sandoval said. “That gets to be the reward of all this.”
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt Athletics for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
