ETSU Football welcomed home following tumultuous road trip

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Not all road trips are created equal in college football. For the Bucs, this weekend’s trip to The Citadel won’t be one they soon forget.

The journey came to a close on Sunday evening, as dozens of fans and family members waved pom-poms and bared signs welcoming the Blue and Gold back home.

“Yeah this is pretty special – I had no idea this was happening,” ETSU head football coach Tre Lamb said Sunday.

“It was super cool to see all the fans and the families of the coaches and players,” redshirt-senior linebacker Zach West explained.

“It feels really good to be back – just take a deep breath and relax and settle down for a little bit,” ETSU offensive coordinator Joe Scelfo added.

The last 48-plus hours have been anything but settled for ETSU football. The team buses and support staff barely made it through rising waters on Interstate 26 Friday morning – before being stranded outside of Asheville for about 14 hours.

“I mean, I’m from this area, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” West, a Watauga, North Carolina native, explained. “You know, I want to send my thoughts and my prayers to everybody that’s been affected.”

Flooding in Western North Carolina forced the Bucs to relocate to high ground several times, sometimes witnessing the devastation of Hurricane Helene firsthand.

“People walking out of – being rescued from the water and losing their homes and all their personal belongings,” Lamb said, “you had little kids walking around everywhere – kind of stranded.”

Unable to communicate with friends, family and ETSU administration for many hours, the team settled in for an overnight stay on the buses. It wasn’t until a group of assistant coaches were walking back from a nearby gas station that a kind stranger – Ryan Ratliff – came to the rescue.

“He was just along for the ride,” Scelfo said. “He was like ‘we’re going to do whatever – we gotta get you guys safe.'”

Ratliff drove the coaches to a nearby hotel, allowing them to make calls to family and loved ones. He returned the coaches to the team buses later that night – but his role in the journey was far from over.

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“You know, 12:30 or one o’clock at night me and Coach McClain are actually sleeping on the bottom of the bus and here comes big Ratliff,” Scelfo chuckled. “He starts knocking on the door and says ‘Guys, get up! I-26 is open, y’all got a football game to win!'”

The team rolled into Charleston, South Carolina at about 4:30 a.m. on Saturday. From there, ETSU Director of Athletics, Dr. Richard Sander, went to work on negotiating a new kick time.

“I said to Mike [Capaccio], we’ve got there, it would be great if we could play the game at 6 o’clock,” Sander told his friend and The Citadel athletic director.

While Leadership at the college initially insisted on a 4 p.m. start time, Sander helped secure a compromise of a 5 p.m. kickoff. Through it all, there was one sentiment that remained.

“Coach Lamb – he clearly wanted to play the game – the guys wanted to play the game,” Sander said.

And play, they did.

ETSU scored a trio of touchdowns in the fourth quarter to secure the team’s first conference victory of the season, 34-17.

“I think everybody would have given us a pass if we were to go down there and be flat and not come out with a win,” West said. “But, we know what we’re capable of.”

“I wrote it on the board – it’s still in our team meeting room,” Lamb said. “We’re not going to be a program that makes any excuses – period. That carries over to life.”

“When you live your life that way and you don’t let the outside circumstances effect you, you don’t make excuses for getting jobs done – I think you have a chance to have a great life,” Lamb continued. “We’ve got a chance to have a really good football team if we take that attitude.”

It was an impressive win under abnormal circumstances, but Lamb just hopes his group can be a beacon of light for those impacted by tragedy.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Lamb said. “Football and ETSU, we want to be here and represent … praying for all those affected and those that have lost loved ones.”

“Our mantra this year for our football team is ‘Together we win’ and I think that’s kind of the mentality we hope – we can kind of pull everybody together,” Sander said.

The team will take Monday off before returning to preparation for Chattanooga. The Mocs are scheduled to make the trip to Johnson City on Saturday for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff.

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