Parents and fans know how hard student athletes train during practice, and they cheer regardless of a victory or loss, but little is known to outsiders about a team’s dynamic.

Pre-game team dinners and traditions all play a part in building trust and friendships within a squad, but few would guess that bus rides contribute to the growth as well. It’s the transportation time to and from “away” games or meets during which teams have a chance to bond because what else are they supposed to do for three hours in a bus full of their teammates?

What do you get when you put 45 exhausted teenagers on a bus headed home for the night after playing a full soccer game? Very unexpectedly, a whole lot of creativity and laughter.

Ipod Idol is a game frequently enjoyed on the soccer bus and the rules are as follows: while wearing headphones, turn the volume up so you can’t hear your voice and howl out the lyrics to a song you love. Dancing is optional, but encouraged. The louder and more off key you are, the more applause you receive.

It’s not always fun and games, however; sleeping is also a very popular way to pass the time, especially on those seven hour long hauls across the state. No part of the bus is wasted as a sleeping area, so the contorted positions that some find surprisingly comfortable would only be seen on a full bus of teenagers. The football players tend to lay on top of each other to get some rest, while it is quite normal to have someone’s feet up by a head rest on the soccer bus. The pictures of these sleeping positions are pretty first-rate.

Seating charts aren’t implemented, aside from the separation between genders, but natural ones form anyway. On the football bus the seniors sit in the very back with the other grades trailing to the front in order of seniority. This is similar with soccer, but, with the split gender seating, the seniors gravitate toward the center of the bus. On the cross country bus, it’s the kids who want to play “Mafia” in the back, and everyone else in front of them.

Mafia may be a typical teenage pastime, but on the cross-country bus it’s serious. One can even hear them rave about it in class. The rules are far too complicated to explain in a couple sentences, but once the basics are learned then strategy can be applied, and that’s when things start to get intense.

Although not every game or meet is preceded with a bus ride, many of the stories that students will share after graduation will have to do with something that went on in a bus to or from a game or meet. Whether they are little things like team hair-braiding, or more noteworthy memories of ukulele sing-a-longs, the accounts will be foreign to anyone who didn’t experience it for themselves.

— Cassidy Grady is a senior at Whitefish High School.