Some Rebels antsy about next flight

Steve Addy

Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

Who: Rebels at Colorado State

When: Noon, Saturday

Where: Moby Arena, Fort Collins

TV: KBFT (Ch. 6)

Radio: KBAD, 920 AM

Barely four hours after Saturday's charter plane crash that killed 10 members of Oklahoma State's basketball program, the Rebels were offering prayers and sympathy with sober faces.

Not only did they play the Cowboys this season, losing Dec. 2 at Oklahoma City, but former UNLV assistant Glynn Cyprien, who recruited most of the current Rebels, joined the OSU coaching staff only five months ago.

Though Cyprien's plane arrived safely and the Rebels' initial shock has passed, they are now forced to deal with the tragedy in a different way. Their first game since the crash is at noon Saturday at Colorado State, and on Friday the team will board a commercial flight to Denver.

The site of the Oklahoma State crash was 40 miles east of Denver, and a few Rebels are not afraid to admit they are nervous about the flight.

"The odds are against something happening, but when you get on the plane, it's something you think about," Jevon Banks said Wednesday.

"We're flying to Colorado. You never know what could happen," guard Trevor Diggs said.

It might be easy to dismiss the players' fears as irrational, especially considering they will be on a commercial flight, not a single-engine plane like the Beechcraft that crashed while flying the Cowboys to Stillwater, Okla., after a loss to Colorado.

But it has been less than a week since two of the Rebels' contemporaries died in the crash -- OSU players Daniel Lawson and Nate Fleming -- along with six staff members and two pilots. And Diggs doesn't see anything irrational about a fear of flying.

Diggs, a New Yorker who played JC ball in Texas, still has not grown accustomed to air travel, though he has endured many long flights in two years with the Rebels. They have made trips to Hawaii, North Carolina, Virginia, Cincinnati, Nashville and, just last week, Washington, D.C.

When Diggs looks out the window and sees nothing below but snowy mountains, his anxiety level increases.

"I don't like flying, period," he said. "I don't like being in the air. An airplane is like a car -- it can break down and have malfunctions. But you're in the air. You can't just pull a plane over to the side of the road. Stuff like that, I worry about."

Rebels coach Max Good, also an uncomfortable flier, said he has noticed Diggs' nervousness on flights.

"Trevor chirps like a jaybird on a plane. I'm sure it's nerves," Good said. "He isn't averse to talking anyway, but he really talks on the plane."

Unlike many teams in the western regions, the Rebels fly all commercial flights, though they made one charter trip last season because of a scheduling quirk. After losing at Utah on Feb. 21, they chartered home immediately because they were hosting Florida Atlantic the next night.

Being on a commercial flight isn't much comfort to Diggs.

"We will be flying with everybody else on a regular airline, and I guess that makes me feel a little better, but stuff happens to (commericial flights), too," he said. "Anything can happen in the air. It happened to those guys (from Oklahoma State). That really shocked me."

Banks was especially saddened by the Oklahoma State crash because trainer Brian Luinstra was killed. When Banks suffered a severe ankle sprain in UNLV's 77-69 overtime loss to the Cowboys, Luinstra and his staff helped tend to him, taking him to an Oklahoma City hospital for X-rays.

"My prayers are with all of them," Banks said. "It was terrible that the crash happened. I'm wondering if it could happen again. When you get on a plane, there is always a feeling like something could happen.

"Maybe it's good we're taking a flight so soon (after the crash), to get it out of the way. But for me, it's still scary."

Good said none of the Rebels has asked not to fly to Denver, so he isn't concerned about any lingering effects from the OSU crash. But Good has his own worries when he's in the air.

"I'm claustrophobic. It has nothing to do with flying," he said. "When a flight gets over two hours, that's when claustrophobia sets in and I get a little queasy. Coming back from Georgetown, I had a knockout pill for that one."

Just like his players, Good felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach after hearing about the OSU crash. He got the word on his way to the locker room after UNLV's overtime win over San Diego State on Saturday night.

"I almost passed out," he said. "I'm still struggling with this. I have always coached with a great deal of fervor and intensity, but I don't know if I'll ever look at coaching quite the same way. It will always be important, but I don't know if it will be the end-all it has been in my life.

"The lesson for me and our players is to take each day and value it. No matter what you do in life, you have to keep striving and do your best every day."

For the Rebels, that means getting on a plane Friday, when they would really rather not.