No longer California dreaming

Lady Stallions ready for cross-country trip

By Barry Byers - Barry Byers

South Pointe softball coach Lance Roberts is taking his team to California for spring break for a little softball and a lot of sightseeing. While there, Roberts will send daily blogs, photos and a player quote for The Herald's Web site. Once the team reaches California, Roberts will be posting on heraldonline.com and items will run throughout the trip.

A promise is a promise and Lance Roberts is a man of his word.

Because of that, 11 of his 15 South Pointe High School softball players will board a plane on April 2 in Charlotte after school to spend spring break playing in a tournament and taking in the sights around California.

Saturday afternoon, Roberts' South Pointe T-shirt was stained with grease and BBQ sauce. It was the byproduct of the last of numerous fundraisers that began three years ago when Roberts left Chester to become the Lady Stallions' first softball coach.

Roberts, along with softball parents Scott Bice and Greg Lunsford and his assistant coach, Gerald Peake, spent the morning cooking 96 Boston butts. They sold out at $25 each and included a bottle of BBQ sauce.

"When I took the job, I told my players that I would take our first senior class to California for spring break,'' Roberts said. "I took two of my Chester teams, so I figured this would be a good time to take South Pointe.

"We've been working that long to get enough money to go. This is our third year cooking the butts. We've sold pizza. We've sold cookie dough. And our parents, I can't say enough about them, worked our football and basketball games and donated their pay to our trip.''

Roberts could have held off a year; had a loophole big as a building. But although Katie Bice is the only senior on the team, Roberts wasn't about to go back on his word.

"When coach Roberts told us three years ago, I didn't know if it would really happen,'' said Bice, who plays shortstop and catcher. "But now that it's so close, I'm really look forward to it.

"I'm excited about seeing the Winchester House and Alcatraz because I like old architecture. This will be my second time flying, and the first trip took about an hour. Coach Roberts said this one will take more than four hours."

Roberts was born in Dixon, Calif. He was at Chester 16 years. He was an assistant football coach and coached the softball team 12 seasons.

A case of heartache led to his first team trip to California.

"My first team was mostly seventh and eighth graders, and that year we had to beat Gaffney to become the first softball team in school history to make the playoffs,'' Roberts said. "We lost a close one, and after the game my players were in tears.

"I told them that night after the game that we'd start raising money and I'd take them to California on spring break. That was 1996 and we went back again in 2001.''

Getting games is the easy part. Roberts went on the Internet and got names of softball coaches from the state's high school association site and started making calls.

He did the same for this year's trip. The Lady Stallions will play in a tournament run by a new school, Daugherty Valley, on April 5. South Pointe is only two years older.

Roberts and crew, which includes his son and two daughters, Peake and two female escorts on staff at South Pointe, will fly back on April. The cost, Roberts said, is approximately $1,700 each, including spending money. That part has been taken care of thanks to a little help from Daugherty Valley.

"Their players and their families are taking our girls in the first two days,'' Roberts said. "From there, we'll stay in five different hotels along the way.

"We've got activities built into our itinerary that we believe the girls will like. We'll have a good time.''

Among the many trips Roberts has planned, and there are more than those listed below, include:

• Winchester Mystery House: Ms. Winchester was married to the man who invented the Winchester rifle. After he died, she began building a house in the late 1800s because she was told if she built a home and continued building 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Indian spirits that died due to the Winchester rifle would not haunt her. She had the home built for 38 continuous years.

• Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge

• Visit historic Alcatraz

• Limousine Tour: Coit Tower, Knob Hill, Pacific Heights, Haight and Ashbury, Vista Pointe, Marina District, Twin Peaks, Telegraph Hill, Lombard Street and the home where "Full House" was filmed

• Stop at Braga Store off the interstate for lunch; great homemade tamales

• Take 17-mile drive through one of the PGA's most famous golf courses (Pebble Beach)

• Baseball game; Giants vs. San Diego Padres (opening night game of the season)

• Visit Muir Wood (giant redwoods)

• Travel up the Sierra Madre Mountains, highest elevated mountains in the continental U.S. (14,000 ft.)

• Take the gondola up Heavenly Mountain (2 1/2 miles up the mountain) and go snow tubing on Heavenly (if weather permits)

• Visit historic Old Sacramento (set up like an old western town)

And naturally, they'll stop in Dixon to see where Roberts was born.

"The only thing that would be better, Roberts said, is that if every player could go.

"I understand. Several had plans for spring break with their parents. And I think one or two of them, although they wouldn't say, didn't want to fly.''