One of the joys of the offseason is that there’s time to surf around the Net and find stories I may have missed during the season.

OK, I lied. There’s no time because we’re working on D3hoops.com and another big project this time of year. And there’s no joy in the offseason. It’s too long! However, I really did stumble across a blog entry from a parent of a Loras player who spent 18 hours in a car one weekend to drive from Tennessee to Dubuque for the school’s Homecoming game.

That’s the round trip, though — let’s not get crazy!

I’ve often wondered how many other people are as crazy as we are — and by the ‘we’ I mean those of us at D3football.com who would hop into a car and drive hundreds of miles at the drop of a hat. People like myself, Keith McMillan, Gordon Mann, Ryan Coleman, Pat Cummings, John McGraw. When I read the following, I was hooked:

It’s an estimated 10-to-11-hour sojourn. This is true if a) you average about 60 miles per hour; b) you stop only for gas and snack while you drive; c) you don’t get lost; d) there’s no construction; and e) the traffic cooperates. Those seemed like a lot of factors to have to fall into place, and, even at that, the prospect of 10+ hours in a car, without anyone to share the driving, still seemed pretty daunting. But I’d never seen my son play a college game, and I was determined to make the trek.

It is a great description of some of the great things about Division III football, and it is definitely worth your time to read.