I remember the 13-hour drive home from Indianapolis to Baltimore on December 20, 2004.
It should have only been a 9-hour drive, but my father, in his infinite wisdom, tried to use our car’s brand new life changing feature – navigation assistance.
Somehow Dad managed to put in the wrong address and we found ourselves off the highway and about two hours into the woods of rural Ohio before I finally got him to turn the navigation assistance off and backtrack to the main road.
Those four hours of additional driving added insult to injury after we watched the Ravens lose the previous night to the Colts and watched Peyton Manning get one TD closer to Johnny U’s consecutive games with a TD pass record.
On the drive out, we were full of joy and excitement as we were on our first Ravens road trip. The day before the game, we went to the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio and had a fantastic trip until about two minutes into the first quarter of the game.
We sat in the front row of the upper level, decked out in purple and enjoying the start to the game. For the most part, the people sitting near us were nice, perhaps in part due to our extreme respect, knowing we were not inside the friendly confines of M&T Bank Stadium. Unfortunately for us, the people directly behind us didn’t care if we were being respectful or not and felt that wearing a Ray Lewis jersey was reason enough to spill their beers all over our backs.
I spent the rest of the game sitting quietly in my seat, no longer enjoying the experience and just waiting for the clock to strike zero so we could get out of there. Somewhere on that 13-hour trip home I shared this observation:
“Dad, everything about this trip was amazing minus the game. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this again and bring hundreds of other Ravens fans with us so that we had safety in numbers?”
At that moment Ravens Trips was born.
The following season we had our very first Ravens Trip to Jacksonville. It was a complete success and a great time was had by all.
While I can still vividly feel the cold beer running down the back of my jersey, it was the beginning of a journey that would eventually both be heartwarming and provide lifetime memories that now include my children. Over the last ten years I have been able to turn the passion of traveling to Ravens games into a business that has allowed me to travel to games with thousands of other diehard Ravens fans and create deep friendships that I would have never had otherwise.
In addition to the great friends I have made, I have been able to witness firsthand how the power of Ravens football can impact the lives of its fans.
I could write a book on the stories we have had on the road; mostly funny, some sad, and plenty of stories that started with a drink or two. For the sake of time, I will share one that still makes me smile.
One year, I received a call from a man who could barely contain his excitement to purchase the trip for him, his brother, and sister. He explained that his brother was blind since birth and that his favorite thing to do was to listen to Ravens games on television.
Due to various reasons, he had never been able to attend a game and the family decided for his birthday that year they were not only going to take him to one, but they would be flying cross country with him to see the Ravens take on the Chargers. I have never seen a person smile for four consecutive days before.
To this day I’ve yet to see a smile as large as the one he flashed when on 4th down, Ray Lewis broke through the line and stuffed Darren Sproles in the backfield to effectively end the game. When I asked him how he knew what happened, he gave me this nugget:
“Cole, it has been so loud in here all day and I just knew that the only person who could turn this place dead silent would be Ray. I could feel all of the energy get sucked out of this building and I have never felt better.”
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His family thanked me profusely for organizing the trip, but it is really them whom I should be thanking. To witness how many lives the Ravens touch has been a more moving experience than I can put into words.
Arranging these trips has been a major part of who I am as a person, and I look forward each season to reuniting with my Ravens family on the road.
And to think it all started with the chill of a cold beer on my back and a wrong turn in rural Ohio.
Ravens Trips has three all-inclusive packages during the 2015 season including adventures to Denver, San Francisco and Miami. Click HERE for details.
