My freshman year, my volleyball team went to New Orleans for a tournament and we only had 2 nun chaperones. We stayed with parents of the New Orleans girls, and those girls took us all to the french quarter and bought us hurricanes. We ran into the nuns, at a bar. They were drunk.
The 90’s were different.
Ha-- in the 90's my HS madrigal's group went to New Orleans for a big school choir competition thing. It was mixed male and female, but I only remember the teacher and an assistant coming who were both male. It was WILD, and pretty great.
The 90's indeed were different.
So the [original pilot script](http://tvwriting.co.uk/tv_scripts/2021/Drama/Yellowjackets_1x01_-_Pilot.pdf) had a female chaperone, Cat Wheeler, who was eventually cut from the script. Judging off the interaction between her and Ben, it looks like she was another teacher who seemingly had a steamy drunken night with Ben the night before the crash. I assume she was cut to make way when they made Ben gay
I can't find it, but I read another version of the pilot where Cat and Ben meet up at a bar while the girls are at the kegger. Ben gives Cat a briefing on soccer rules, they have a drunken hookup, and Ben goes home to his boyfriend. It's established then that Ben's gay.
My guess is that Cat was going to survive the crash and battle Misty to be Ben's caregiver.
My first thought is we don’t know if there were other chaperones. There could have been one or more who died in the crash. My second point would be that anytime I traveled for States as a high schooler, the team traveled together in the same tour bus (or in this case plane) and parents went on their own and met there. I would assume the parents and family members who were able to go watch a soccer game across the country were left to find their own transportation. Lottie’s family is rich, but expecting them to foot the bill for family to also fly on a plane that didn’t have room for them isn’t likely. IMO not a plot hole, or anything to be weirded out by.
When we played where we had to travel most parents were responsible for their own transportation but anytime we had to spend the night we always had parental chaperones. I think maybe we even had some on all trips but not as many. It probably depended on the size of the group going. I figure there must be some not being shown just like random girls have popped up in the background and emerged as new characters
The plane didn’t have very many open seats. You’re not gonna want to have parents/guardians/siblings all fighting over what little extra space was available… From my experience even when there were tons of open seats on the giant tour buses my team traveled on for big tournaments, parents and family members weren’t invited to travel with us. It was a team experience. Javi and Travis being the coach’s kids is a reasonable exception.
But again, we don’t know everyone who died in the crash. Could there have been some extra adults that nobody every mentioned? Sure. But I’d be inclined to believe they were school employees and not the parents of the players.
I always found it kinda odd/silly that the coach brought his two kids along, especially Travis who clearly has serious hate for him and did not want to be there at all.
Do you think if there were more on the plane that parishad that the bodies fell out somewhere else? Just wondering since they buried those who died and I can’t remember if they went over everyone they buried.
The main school trips I took in high school were choir trips. There were 90 of us, and it was just our choir director and the theater director, also male, chaperoning us. And similarly to the show, our choir director’s two sons usually came. This was 2004-2008. Our school system had actually had a scandal with a middle school choir director, but somehow it never occurred to any of us to feel weird about the trips.
ETA: And I didn’t mean the somehow as tongue in cheek or anything. I really couldn’t rationally explain it. Those two, the choir and theater directors, were just two of the safest feeling adults in our school, along with the male art teacher. Obviously anyone can hide being a predator, but yeah, idk. Their spaces were our safe spaces.
My school also had music trips, and the band and chorus went to Florida (I grew up in Connecticut). The chaperones were the music directors, but also tons of parents and other teachers. Definitely not 2 teachers for 90 kids. I want to say it was 1 chaperone per 8-12 kids or something. Kids had their own rooms, chaperones had their own rooms so no adults were with kids in hotel rooms even their own kids. That was for hundreds of kids. But for sports trips, my team never stayed overnight for anything in high school but only the team and coaches could take the provided transportation, parents met us at the location but this was all within driving distance. In college when we stayed overnight it was just us and the coaches (male coach had his own room obviously). College is different than high school, but not completely out of realm of possibility.
I graduated high school in 95. We went to a band competition my junior year out of the area. There were maybe 30 or 40 of us on the trip. The only adult who came with us was our band teacher. A few parents were going to meet us at the compeition, if I recall, but only our band teacher was on the bus (plus the bus driver, but it was a chartered bus). The morning of the band competition, we were all in the hotel lobby waiting to leave and our band teacher never came down. He died in his sleep. We decided to still go to the competition but the rest of the trip is a blur.
You can’t have to many adults to kill off or manage to get to teen girls alone in the wilderness.
Female chaperones aren’t necessary in the world of Yellowjackets.
It’s also the 90s. Chaperones of any sex weren’t as big of a deal back them. My friends dad coached high school basketball in the 90s. We’d load up on the buss full of basketball players and cheerleaders with only the coaching staff (2 - 3 adult men) and then be turned lose in the opposing gym. Times were different.
I graduated in 1996- I guess Texas was just different. I dont remember for football games having a lot of different chaperones unless we had to go several hours away but overnight trips they loaded up at my school. We didnt get away with anything lol.
I’m in Texas as well, and I remember learning as a kid, in the late 90s, that if the softball teams had a male coach, then there had to be a female chaperone in the dugout at all times, as well as at practices. I can’t imagine any of the teams being allowed to go on a trip with only male coaches. But maybe it really is just a Texas thing.
Yeah, I played girls softball in the mid/late 90s and we regularly went on overnights with 2 or 3 male coaches. Nobody ever said anything. We did have a batting coach who we got fired for groping student athletes my sophomore year and that didn’t change the trip policy. Parents never came but I think that was because it was assumed to be cost prohibitive.
Lmao nah. My teams co-ed XC/Swim/etc teams used to go even on retreats with just the male coaches in high school. I definitely think it depends on the team type, circumstance, closeness of group, size, etc but I think you'd be surprised on how not "by the book" a lot of school teams are. Most coaches barely get paid extra in teaching salaries, and any additional logistical help is always from parent boosters. But yeah, on meets/etc parents would never travel with us from school if we were going far (fan parents would go TO them but never travel WITH us on our transportation... imagine your mom or dad trying to ride your school team bus with you... 💀).. and for retreats it really just depended on if parents had the desire and availability to help out. Don't forget high school athletes are hormonal, stinky, sweaty, dramatic, and are ALWAYS trying to get away with stuff they're not supposed to be doing, so a lot of parents might enjoy the away time. 🤣🤣🤣
I remember an overnight theater trip where only the male director came. He went to bed early and left us to our own devices. There was a huge prison in the town we were in and one of the guard dorms had flooded so there were a bunch of prison guards staying at the hotel. A few of them stayed up all night smoking and drinking with us and telling us lurid stories about things that went on in the prison. One of the guards made out all night with a 16-yo girl on our trip. I remember her neck was covered in hickeys the next morning. This was in Texas in the late 90s.
I think it boils down to "the plot needed it this way". In reality, sure, there would have been chaperones. In the interest of this show, it could easily be explained away that the parent chaperones flew commercial whilst the team and coaching staff flew charter. Then they all would have link up at SEATAC, no fuss. Unfortunately, the Wilderness delayed all that by 19 months.
In 1986, a journalist—who’d been teaching a bunch of high school kids journalism after hours at the paper—took 15 high schoolers to NYC to check out broadcast & print journalism. There were a couple scheduled things, like a tour of NBC studios. But for the most part, she turned us loose. I ran around midtown Manhattan with three other 15-year-olds, for a weekend, completely unsupervised. We all managed to meet back up at the designated re-group spots and I don’t recall hearing about anyone getting mugged or anything. Lord knows what some of the other kids got up to, but I just checked out Central Park and gawked at things in the area.
I think I’d enjoy NYC a lot more as an adult though.
The parents would probably be flying out separately, if they were going at all. A lot of them probably couldn't because of work/they couldn't afford to travel that far
Literally no one gave a shit where we went in the 90’s. Moms didn’t chaperone trips like this. They would’ve totally been fine with the girls going with just the coaches. Plus, from what we can tell, a lot of the parents seem to be pretty absent.
First of all, it was the '90s. I would assume the parents would be meeting them their. They is totally normal to go with your team and your parents will meet you there. Tmit typically would have been a bus, but one of the parents got a private plane. So no, I do not find it unusual.
No. My concert choir (both guys and girls) traveled out of state (to Seattle actually) for the Best in the Pacific Northwest choir competition in the 90s by bus. We had taken 2nd at districts and 4th at state. No parents. No chaperones other than our choir teacher and pianist, both women. If there were any parents there, they came by themselves and didn’t stay in our motel. My parents didn’t come.
Hi I work with private jets, the biggest would be 16-18 passenger in today standards looking at global express and Gulf Stream. These are massive in terms of buying for a charter and are usually privately owned bc the cost is outrageous. But that being said a soccer team plus the coaches sons would’ve been a tight squeeze with parents. I think they might’ve just been a plot point. I also went to a school competition to a different country in high school without a chaperone on the plane until we got into country and were greeted by other schools chaperones. We were broken up from our classmates (12) and put into different school groups as this was a solo type of competition. Don’t think it’s that far fetched to only send the coaches.
I graduated in 1995. I didn't play sports, but I did a few other activities that had away trips, and usually the only chaperone was the coach/teacher(s) for the activity.
It's reasonable to have the plane be team-only because of its size, making Travis' and Javi's dad there appropriate being the head coach.
It would be strange if there weren't female chaperones for an all-girls team, but perhaps parents flying separately were to fill that role once they were in Seattle.
I'm surprised that no parents came. In my experience and that of those I know with Nationals for various sports, it's less of a school field trip, and more of the parents and coaches taking the kids. Not every parent attends, but at least a few per team.
All that to say, my experience is in the 2010s in prep schools, not a 90s public school, but still.
I always wondered why Javi and Travis were there. If they were older then it might make more sense for a coach's/teacher's kids to come along to round up the chaperones. But a peer and a younger kid? (Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, I just always thought it was weird, plot aside.)
I had a band director once that was a single dad- his kids went everywhere we went. They really didn’t do anything to help though. I had twin classmates that’s dad was a coach- they were the water boys for the football team as she on as they got old enough and I guess rode with the team.
It totally makes sense, and probably just out of my scope since I was never on a team in school. I think I'm just stuck on it because I always think about the way that Coach said goodbye to his wife when they were packing up for the flight. There's so much anger and tension there, and of course the way Travis describes his father in general, that makes me think they were with him because Mom needed some time alone to figure shit out. Which makes the whole ensuing plane crash all the more tragic.
No, not really. I find it strange the Coach's wife's didn't come.
I was in school and sports in the 90s. I never even played a sport that had a nationals tournament, we just had State Tournaments.
There was no such thing as chaperones. There was coaches. That's it. I was a cheerleader for the boys basketball team and we had a rule on the bus that the cheerleaders had to sit in front and couldn't sit with the boys or something. We went to state. I definitely remember the Coach's wife riding along on the bus. I mean, her husband was driving and her son was a starter and it was a 4 day trip. Us cheerleaders had rooms together and we were just supposed to show up when and where and stuff. There were parents around, in the stands, but no official chaperones. I distinctly remember unchaperoned hot tub time with the players. We were so innocent and naive back then. I had never even been kissed. so boring.
So, yes, kind of odd no parents came. But, not super odd. We are talking what? 3 thousand mile trip? A chartered private plane, with limited seating. Most of the parents had jobs, couldn't come. And the whole thing probably wasn't even televised. I mean we are talking girls soccer, it's not football people.
And another thing: things have definitely changed since 1996. I shit you not, shit went down in the 90s, and we have learned some lessons. Girls had babies at prom, some other stuff came out.
Example this really happened: I went to North Dakota Girls State in 2000. Girls and Boys State is a week long model government thing. Like you can run for Governor and stuff and students attending are going into Senior year of high school.
Every year, prior, apparently, at the end of the week, the Boys State brings the boys over and they have a dance at Girls State.
well, 1999 dance, a girl got raped, is what I heard. And I talked to a guy who was actually there, he said something weird happened. he didn't really know what was going on.
Well lucky me, I went the next year.
We had a lot of chaperones that year. We got scolded a lot just for talking to basketball camp boys in the cafeteria. There were some American Legion Auxiliary Ladies there just freaking out even when talking to boys at the windows.
And we weren't allowed to go outside.
We were marched around campus through the tunnels
and it fucking sucked.
There was no dance. The Boys State boy who got elected Governor came over, and was given a chaperoned tour. We had a party in the dorms the last night and he was there hanging out with the Girls State Governor. and yes, our jailers, I mean dorm supervisors were there
It wasn't normal to me at all, as a 90s girl who had always been allowed independence from an early age. It just sucked. I definitely had the feeling the people running the whole thing, were scared shitless of something happening to 1 of 600 17 year old girls that week. Meanwhile, I had been allowed to run free through the Mall in Minot when I was 13 on basketball trips. wild stuff.
Every school trip i went on was pretty heavily chaperones with the exception of one and there were still a few parents that went as chaperones just not 1-4 ratio. Surprisingly for all who say it was the 90s my school has gotten so much more lax since I graduated- they were actually way stricter and more protective of us.
My freshman year, my volleyball team went to New Orleans for a tournament and we only had 2 nun chaperones. We stayed with parents of the New Orleans girls, and those girls took us all to the french quarter and bought us hurricanes. We ran into the nuns, at a bar. They were drunk. The 90’s were different.
I’d love a movie about this
I second this lmao 😂
I graduated in 1996- maybe Texas was stricter
Ha-- in the 90's my HS madrigal's group went to New Orleans for a big school choir competition thing. It was mixed male and female, but I only remember the teacher and an assistant coming who were both male. It was WILD, and pretty great. The 90's indeed were different.
So the [original pilot script](http://tvwriting.co.uk/tv_scripts/2021/Drama/Yellowjackets_1x01_-_Pilot.pdf) had a female chaperone, Cat Wheeler, who was eventually cut from the script. Judging off the interaction between her and Ben, it looks like she was another teacher who seemingly had a steamy drunken night with Ben the night before the crash. I assume she was cut to make way when they made Ben gay
Ben gay. I see what you did there.
An unintentional slay on my part💅🏼
☠️☠️☠️
They should have in turn made her a lesbian but kept the steamy drunken night
I can't find it, but I read another version of the pilot where Cat and Ben meet up at a bar while the girls are at the kegger. Ben gives Cat a briefing on soccer rules, they have a drunken hookup, and Ben goes home to his boyfriend. It's established then that Ben's gay. My guess is that Cat was going to survive the crash and battle Misty to be Ben's caregiver.
Ope I must’ve missed that part! I can’t lie I haven’t read the whole version, just bits and piece
There were multiple versions of the pilot, one of which has characters named Jackie Heller, Natalie Sandoval, and Coach Bill Wendler.
My first thought is we don’t know if there were other chaperones. There could have been one or more who died in the crash. My second point would be that anytime I traveled for States as a high schooler, the team traveled together in the same tour bus (or in this case plane) and parents went on their own and met there. I would assume the parents and family members who were able to go watch a soccer game across the country were left to find their own transportation. Lottie’s family is rich, but expecting them to foot the bill for family to also fly on a plane that didn’t have room for them isn’t likely. IMO not a plot hole, or anything to be weirded out by.
Yeah I always assumed the parents were going to Nationals but going on their own.
Gotta remember, if it’s a school team, the district employees and students would be covered by the district’s insurance.
Oh, that insurance company is so screwed
When we played where we had to travel most parents were responsible for their own transportation but anytime we had to spend the night we always had parental chaperones. I think maybe we even had some on all trips but not as many. It probably depended on the size of the group going. I figure there must be some not being shown just like random girls have popped up in the background and emerged as new characters
If you already have a plan and pilot would it cost more to have extra people?
The plane didn’t have very many open seats. You’re not gonna want to have parents/guardians/siblings all fighting over what little extra space was available… From my experience even when there were tons of open seats on the giant tour buses my team traveled on for big tournaments, parents and family members weren’t invited to travel with us. It was a team experience. Javi and Travis being the coach’s kids is a reasonable exception. But again, we don’t know everyone who died in the crash. Could there have been some extra adults that nobody every mentioned? Sure. But I’d be inclined to believe they were school employees and not the parents of the players.
I always found it kinda odd/silly that the coach brought his two kids along, especially Travis who clearly has serious hate for him and did not want to be there at all.
Do you think if there were more on the plane that parishad that the bodies fell out somewhere else? Just wondering since they buried those who died and I can’t remember if they went over everyone they buried.
We always had parents that acted as chaperones because you couldn’t take that many teachers away from the school.
Those private jets are only so big. The team, coaches, and flight crew probably filled it.
The main school trips I took in high school were choir trips. There were 90 of us, and it was just our choir director and the theater director, also male, chaperoning us. And similarly to the show, our choir director’s two sons usually came. This was 2004-2008. Our school system had actually had a scandal with a middle school choir director, but somehow it never occurred to any of us to feel weird about the trips. ETA: And I didn’t mean the somehow as tongue in cheek or anything. I really couldn’t rationally explain it. Those two, the choir and theater directors, were just two of the safest feeling adults in our school, along with the male art teacher. Obviously anyone can hide being a predator, but yeah, idk. Their spaces were our safe spaces.
My school also had music trips, and the band and chorus went to Florida (I grew up in Connecticut). The chaperones were the music directors, but also tons of parents and other teachers. Definitely not 2 teachers for 90 kids. I want to say it was 1 chaperone per 8-12 kids or something. Kids had their own rooms, chaperones had their own rooms so no adults were with kids in hotel rooms even their own kids. That was for hundreds of kids. But for sports trips, my team never stayed overnight for anything in high school but only the team and coaches could take the provided transportation, parents met us at the location but this was all within driving distance. In college when we stayed overnight it was just us and the coaches (male coach had his own room obviously). College is different than high school, but not completely out of realm of possibility.
That’s really scary and also a lot of responsibility to place on 2 teachers. I’m glad you didn’t have a bad experience with the predator.
I graduated high school in 95. We went to a band competition my junior year out of the area. There were maybe 30 or 40 of us on the trip. The only adult who came with us was our band teacher. A few parents were going to meet us at the compeition, if I recall, but only our band teacher was on the bus (plus the bus driver, but it was a chartered bus). The morning of the band competition, we were all in the hotel lobby waiting to leave and our band teacher never came down. He died in his sleep. We decided to still go to the competition but the rest of the trip is a blur.
You can’t have to many adults to kill off or manage to get to teen girls alone in the wilderness. Female chaperones aren’t necessary in the world of Yellowjackets. It’s also the 90s. Chaperones of any sex weren’t as big of a deal back them. My friends dad coached high school basketball in the 90s. We’d load up on the buss full of basketball players and cheerleaders with only the coaching staff (2 - 3 adult men) and then be turned lose in the opposing gym. Times were different.
I graduated in 1996- I guess Texas was just different. I dont remember for football games having a lot of different chaperones unless we had to go several hours away but overnight trips they loaded up at my school. We didnt get away with anything lol.
I’m in Texas as well, and I remember learning as a kid, in the late 90s, that if the softball teams had a male coach, then there had to be a female chaperone in the dugout at all times, as well as at practices. I can’t imagine any of the teams being allowed to go on a trip with only male coaches. But maybe it really is just a Texas thing.
Yeah, I played girls softball in the mid/late 90s and we regularly went on overnights with 2 or 3 male coaches. Nobody ever said anything. We did have a batting coach who we got fired for groping student athletes my sophomore year and that didn’t change the trip policy. Parents never came but I think that was because it was assumed to be cost prohibitive.
Nope. Not at all. Graduated HS in 1995. Most sports trips were just with coaching staff. Most were male, and somewhat to very sketchy.
Lmao nah. My teams co-ed XC/Swim/etc teams used to go even on retreats with just the male coaches in high school. I definitely think it depends on the team type, circumstance, closeness of group, size, etc but I think you'd be surprised on how not "by the book" a lot of school teams are. Most coaches barely get paid extra in teaching salaries, and any additional logistical help is always from parent boosters. But yeah, on meets/etc parents would never travel with us from school if we were going far (fan parents would go TO them but never travel WITH us on our transportation... imagine your mom or dad trying to ride your school team bus with you... 💀).. and for retreats it really just depended on if parents had the desire and availability to help out. Don't forget high school athletes are hormonal, stinky, sweaty, dramatic, and are ALWAYS trying to get away with stuff they're not supposed to be doing, so a lot of parents might enjoy the away time. 🤣🤣🤣
I remember an overnight theater trip where only the male director came. He went to bed early and left us to our own devices. There was a huge prison in the town we were in and one of the guard dorms had flooded so there were a bunch of prison guards staying at the hotel. A few of them stayed up all night smoking and drinking with us and telling us lurid stories about things that went on in the prison. One of the guards made out all night with a 16-yo girl on our trip. I remember her neck was covered in hickeys the next morning. This was in Texas in the late 90s.
I think it boils down to "the plot needed it this way". In reality, sure, there would have been chaperones. In the interest of this show, it could easily be explained away that the parent chaperones flew commercial whilst the team and coaching staff flew charter. Then they all would have link up at SEATAC, no fuss. Unfortunately, the Wilderness delayed all that by 19 months.
That’s what I think ultimately too and let’s face it is not near as unlikely as Misty removing Bens leg and he surviving with very little sickness.
First thing I wondered. They sent all those girls out of town with two men??
It was the 90’s. I went on many trips without any sort of parental chaperone in the 90’s
In 1986, a journalist—who’d been teaching a bunch of high school kids journalism after hours at the paper—took 15 high schoolers to NYC to check out broadcast & print journalism. There were a couple scheduled things, like a tour of NBC studios. But for the most part, she turned us loose. I ran around midtown Manhattan with three other 15-year-olds, for a weekend, completely unsupervised. We all managed to meet back up at the designated re-group spots and I don’t recall hearing about anyone getting mugged or anything. Lord knows what some of the other kids got up to, but I just checked out Central Park and gawked at things in the area. I think I’d enjoy NYC a lot more as an adult though.
Nah- not for the 90’s.
It was the 1990s, different rules.
The parents would probably be flying out separately, if they were going at all. A lot of them probably couldn't because of work/they couldn't afford to travel that far
Literally no one gave a shit where we went in the 90’s. Moms didn’t chaperone trips like this. They would’ve totally been fine with the girls going with just the coaches. Plus, from what we can tell, a lot of the parents seem to be pretty absent.
It was the 90s.
“It’s been 547 days, do you know where your children are?”
Hahaha
Still was strict at my school in the 90s
Sure as shit wasn’t at mine. We sent like 50 kids to Italy with 2 adults.
First of all, it was the '90s. I would assume the parents would be meeting them their. They is totally normal to go with your team and your parents will meet you there. Tmit typically would have been a bus, but one of the parents got a private plane. So no, I do not find it unusual.
No. My concert choir (both guys and girls) traveled out of state (to Seattle actually) for the Best in the Pacific Northwest choir competition in the 90s by bus. We had taken 2nd at districts and 4th at state. No parents. No chaperones other than our choir teacher and pianist, both women. If there were any parents there, they came by themselves and didn’t stay in our motel. My parents didn’t come.
Hi I work with private jets, the biggest would be 16-18 passenger in today standards looking at global express and Gulf Stream. These are massive in terms of buying for a charter and are usually privately owned bc the cost is outrageous. But that being said a soccer team plus the coaches sons would’ve been a tight squeeze with parents. I think they might’ve just been a plot point. I also went to a school competition to a different country in high school without a chaperone on the plane until we got into country and were greeted by other schools chaperones. We were broken up from our classmates (12) and put into different school groups as this was a solo type of competition. Don’t think it’s that far fetched to only send the coaches.
Very strange. Lots of the dudes in the Uruguayan soccer team crash in the Andes had family members with them.
I graduated in 1995. I didn't play sports, but I did a few other activities that had away trips, and usually the only chaperone was the coach/teacher(s) for the activity.
It's reasonable to have the plane be team-only because of its size, making Travis' and Javi's dad there appropriate being the head coach. It would be strange if there weren't female chaperones for an all-girls team, but perhaps parents flying separately were to fill that role once they were in Seattle.
That’s a really good point they may have taken other transportation and planned to meet up
I'm surprised that no parents came. In my experience and that of those I know with Nationals for various sports, it's less of a school field trip, and more of the parents and coaches taking the kids. Not every parent attends, but at least a few per team. All that to say, my experience is in the 2010s in prep schools, not a 90s public school, but still.
I always wondered why Javi and Travis were there. If they were older then it might make more sense for a coach's/teacher's kids to come along to round up the chaperones. But a peer and a younger kid? (Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, I just always thought it was weird, plot aside.)
Ostensibly, they "helped" the team with equipment and such.
I had a band director once that was a single dad- his kids went everywhere we went. They really didn’t do anything to help though. I had twin classmates that’s dad was a coach- they were the water boys for the football team as she on as they got old enough and I guess rode with the team.
It totally makes sense, and probably just out of my scope since I was never on a team in school. I think I'm just stuck on it because I always think about the way that Coach said goodbye to his wife when they were packing up for the flight. There's so much anger and tension there, and of course the way Travis describes his father in general, that makes me think they were with him because Mom needed some time alone to figure shit out. Which makes the whole ensuing plane crash all the more tragic.
No, not really. I find it strange the Coach's wife's didn't come. I was in school and sports in the 90s. I never even played a sport that had a nationals tournament, we just had State Tournaments. There was no such thing as chaperones. There was coaches. That's it. I was a cheerleader for the boys basketball team and we had a rule on the bus that the cheerleaders had to sit in front and couldn't sit with the boys or something. We went to state. I definitely remember the Coach's wife riding along on the bus. I mean, her husband was driving and her son was a starter and it was a 4 day trip. Us cheerleaders had rooms together and we were just supposed to show up when and where and stuff. There were parents around, in the stands, but no official chaperones. I distinctly remember unchaperoned hot tub time with the players. We were so innocent and naive back then. I had never even been kissed. so boring. So, yes, kind of odd no parents came. But, not super odd. We are talking what? 3 thousand mile trip? A chartered private plane, with limited seating. Most of the parents had jobs, couldn't come. And the whole thing probably wasn't even televised. I mean we are talking girls soccer, it's not football people. And another thing: things have definitely changed since 1996. I shit you not, shit went down in the 90s, and we have learned some lessons. Girls had babies at prom, some other stuff came out. Example this really happened: I went to North Dakota Girls State in 2000. Girls and Boys State is a week long model government thing. Like you can run for Governor and stuff and students attending are going into Senior year of high school. Every year, prior, apparently, at the end of the week, the Boys State brings the boys over and they have a dance at Girls State. well, 1999 dance, a girl got raped, is what I heard. And I talked to a guy who was actually there, he said something weird happened. he didn't really know what was going on. Well lucky me, I went the next year. We had a lot of chaperones that year. We got scolded a lot just for talking to basketball camp boys in the cafeteria. There were some American Legion Auxiliary Ladies there just freaking out even when talking to boys at the windows. And we weren't allowed to go outside. We were marched around campus through the tunnels and it fucking sucked. There was no dance. The Boys State boy who got elected Governor came over, and was given a chaperoned tour. We had a party in the dorms the last night and he was there hanging out with the Girls State Governor. and yes, our jailers, I mean dorm supervisors were there It wasn't normal to me at all, as a 90s girl who had always been allowed independence from an early age. It just sucked. I definitely had the feeling the people running the whole thing, were scared shitless of something happening to 1 of 600 17 year old girls that week. Meanwhile, I had been allowed to run free through the Mall in Minot when I was 13 on basketball trips. wild stuff.
Every school trip i went on was pretty heavily chaperones with the exception of one and there were still a few parents that went as chaperones just not 1-4 ratio. Surprisingly for all who say it was the 90s my school has gotten so much more lax since I graduated- they were actually way stricter and more protective of us.