JUDY PUTNAM

Putnam: Spring break goes awry for Mason baseball team

"Difficult times don’t create character, they reveal it"

Judy Putnam
Lansing State Journal

MASON – Mason High School Baseball Coach Scott Berman tells his players: “Difficult times don’t create character, they reveal it.”

That lesson was tested – in a major league way – over spring break.

Coach Scott Berman talks to members of the Mason High School baseball team on an April trip to Vero Beach, Florida. The bus broke down three times.

Berman, a half-dozen adult chaperones and two dozen students, left on a baseball-themed road trip to Florida on April 2.

Before they returned home at 3 p.m. Monday, they were left to cool their heels on the side of the road three times when the bus broke down. The group had been expected home Sunday afternoon. Students missed a day of school with SAT tests breathing down the juniors’ necks on Tuesday.

Berman, a business owner from Holt and director of marketing and purchasing for a West Michigan food service company, is in his third year as coach of the Bulldogs. He organized the trip so that teammates could bond and to practice at the former LA Dodgers spring training camp in Vero Beach. It included a side trip to catch a Detroit Tigers-Miami Marlins game. Students paid for the trip themselves at $1,200 per person.

The trip started on the wrong foot with the bus from Metro Motor Coach in Fraser showing up an hour late.

Then it took a seriously wrong turn hours later in Knoxville, Tennessee. The bus driver, new to the company and since fired, filled the diesel-fueled bus with gasoline.

When the group stopped to eat breakfast in Ashburn, Georgia, the bus wouldn't start again.

Lou Calcaterra, owner of the bus service, said he can’t explain how his driver made such a costly mistake. Mechanics had to be dispatched, the fuel drained and replaced and the filter replaced.

Member of the Mason High School baseball team made do with an empty field while they were stuck in Ashburn, Georgia.

The group spent the day in Ashburn. Berman said the group made the best of the situation, holding its baseball practice in an empty field next to Shoney’s, where they had breakfast, and scattering to various locations for lunch.

They arrived in Vero Beach, Florida, after 11 p.m. — some nine hours late, missing a prepaid dinner and a practice in a reserved field.

The bus again broke down April 6 on a two-hour trip to the Marlins Stadium in Miami. The players hiked a short distance to a Dairy Queen and waited for three hours. They arrived by the sixth inning, missing a tour of the new Marlins Park and a planned group photo on the field.

But the road trip home, was the real kicker.

The power steering went out. Again it was in Georgia, this time at a town called McDonough around 10 p.m. Saturday.

The plan was to drive through the night and sleep on the bus. Instead, they ended up sharing rooms at a Howard Johnson with Berman putting nearly $1,900 of extra expenses on his own credit card, including two extra meals at a Cracker Barrel and Applebees.

“'Georgia' is now a curse word at Mason High School,” Berman said, only half-joking.

After more repairs and waiting, the group pulled into the high school parking lot at 3 p.m. Monday. Team members missed a full day of school. Juniors were told they could take their SAT on a retest date.

A view from the bus that broke down three times on a road trip for members of the Mason High School baseball team.

Berman said he wants his out-of-pocket expenses covered and a full refund to the students and chaperones for the bus portion of the trip, at about $275 per person.

Calcaterra said he is not refunding the entire amount of $9,200 for the bus service, plus nearly $1,900 for extra meals and hotel rooms, since the group did get its trip to Florida. He said he will work with the high school and Berman to refund a portion. He said several parents threatened to sue him.

He said he worked hard with Berman to work through the problems, and Berman agreed he was accommodating, despite the hardships.

“There were just mishaps on this trip that happened,” Calcaterra said. “They were dealt with immediately. It wasn’t like I just didn’t care about kids in Florida. It was just unfortunate.”

Berman said he’s proud of his team for rolling with the delays without complaint.

“I can tell you unequivocally, I didn’t get one single complaint,” he said. “It’s a tribute to the kids, how well they handled it.”

Berman, who commutes from Holt to Grand Rapids for work, was dealing with an added frustration when I spoke to him Wednesday.

“On my first day back, to put frosting on the cake, my car broke down,” he said.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Write to her at300 S. Washington Square Suite #300 Lansing, MI, 48933. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.