A task force is working on transportation policies to create a safe environment for student-athlete travel in response to the Jan. 27 plane crash that killed 10 members and affiliates of the Oklahoma State University men’s basketball program.
“At the time of the crash last year, people asked over and over and over again whether we would have a review of our policies,” said Harry Birdwell, vice president for business and external relations. “The university said, ‘Sure we will — we never want this to happen again.’”
The Beechcraft Super King Air 200 plane went down shortly after departing for Stillwater last year, following a Cowboy basketball game against Colorado. The crash killed the two pilots and eight members and affiliates of the team, including Kendall Durfey, Bjorn Fahlstrom, Nate Fleming, Will Hancock, Daniel Lawson, Brian Luinstra, Denver Mills, Pat Noyes, Bill Teegins and Jared Weiberg.
The 14-member travel task force has met several times during the past two months. Birdwell said the group hopes to have its work completed by March.
“We are looking at all forms of transportation from vans to buses to airplanes,” Birdwell said. “In a university athletic department, there are obviously a lot of ways that teams travel to and from athletic venues.”
Zane Fleming, father of Nate Fleming, one of the 10 plane crash victims, is a member of the task force. He said the university has already made changes in terms of van travel by switching from narrow, 15-passenger vans to newer, wide ones.
School officials declined to comment on the details of the work the panel has completed to this point.
“I don’t want to discuss the specifics yet,” Birdwell said. “We’ll fully disclose and announce the committee’s work, but right now everything we are doing is in draft stage.”
However, Fleming expressed his concerns regarding air travel and the solutions he sees for them.
“I’d like to see them do away with donated planes,” he said. “That means we need to charter on the medium-to-short distances … and we need to go commercial on long distances.”
Fleming and Birdwell expressed faith in the committee and the work they have done to this point.
“I think we’ve made a lot of headway,” Fleming said.
“We’ve got a lot of people on that board that are really bright — it’s going to be better in the long run.”
Fleming said OSU has not had a travel policy in the past.
Suzanne Flaig, women’s equestrian assistant coach, said coaches have control over how their teams travel.
“We can decide whether we are going to fly or drive,” Flaig said.
“We pretty much have somewhere between an 8- to 10-hour marker — if it’s under that, we’ll drive.”
She said the university has no standard for travel; however, when the equestrian team flies, it does so commercially — primarily due to the large number of participants and the cost involved in chartering.
Though the team has flown several airlines, it generally uses a travel agency through the athletic department to get tickets.
But ground travel is different.
“As far as ground travel goes, we have some latitude,” Flaig said.
“There are some preferred vendors that are already set up through the athletic office. I believe we haven’t had to deviate from those but believe we could if it were necessary.”
Officials hope the suggestions the task force makes will be applied not only at OSU, but at other universities nationwide.
“Frankly, we want to share it with the other Big 12 institutions, but more than that — as I said in the beginning — we hope that we put together something that is both comprehensive on all forms of transportation that will be seriously looked at by the entire NCAA,” Birdwell said.
“What we want to be sure is that we have the opportunity to lay this document on the table, so that any institution that’s maybe looking for answers can have the benefit of our thinking.”
The task force is chaired by Birdwell and consists of 13 other members including Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips; two other members of the athletic department, four faculty members outside the athletic department, a member of the men’s basketball team, Fredrik Jönzén; and a member of the women’s basketball team, Terrisha Osborn.
Three fathers who lost their sons in the Jan. 27 plane crash are also on the task force — Fleming, Mick Weiberg and Bill Hancock.
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