A day in the life of a drunk-bus driver

It’s hardly full, but still the noise of seven riders fills the bus. Three rows back on the right, a tan, slightly built passenger in a plaid shirt beats the window with his fist. His deadpan face conveys his alcohol-induced absence. The beats continue rattling the window with each thump. It becomes too much and Chandler Bryant glares through his revision mirror at the aspiring percussionist. “Hey! Chill it back there, man!” The racket stops.

It’s 1.01 a.m., but the night’s still young for Bryant, an East Carolina University Pirate Express driver. It’s Friday and his second consecutive night driving students from various apartment complexes to downtown and back. Tonight is Route 908 to The Bellamy, last night Route 907 to Copper Beech.

“I don’t mind the drunk bus so much. There’s always something going on,” Bryant says passing hand over hand to turn the large black wheel in front of him. “I mean, there’s the people riding the bus and the other cars on the road.”

Bryant, a senior criminal justice major, is one of many students employed by the ECU Student Transit Authority to transport students between campus and Greenville, but one of few daring enough to drive nights.

The Pirate Express service began in Fall 2005 as an extension of ECU Transit’s Safe Ride service to cater to students living off-campus. ECU Director of Transit, Wood Davidson, recalls the alarming stories of assaults and robberies of students returning to their cars downtown as what sparked the conversation about a night bus service. However, he says the transit department was limited by funds. “We didn’t feel like it was something we should charge for or increase student fees to pay for,” Davidson explains. “It wasn’t academic, but it certainly had a core safety function.”

The service began after daytime service partnerships grew.  Apartment complexes receiving the Pirate Express service cover the operating costs, while ECU student fees cover capital costs. “We’re using buses that, at that time of night, would typically just be parked in the yard,” Davidson explains. On any given Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, 12 buses are in operation.

As the night matures, Bryant sees his passengers’ state of mind change. Passengers fill the buses heading downtown from 11 p.m., but the first of the drunken passengers start to file back on bus from the downtown hub after little more than an hour.

A few miles down the road after Bryant put a stop to the window percussion, the drummer-boy stands and steadies himself against the steal poles. Recalling his colorful evening, he begins to shout labels at a blonde sitting in the arms of a young guy. She jumps up to hit him after he called her a slut. Her actions only fuel his performance. The name-calling continues and the noise level once again rises.

At a red light at the intersection of Charles Street and Greenville Boulevard, Bryant slams the bus into park. Lifting his wheel into its upward position, he spins his 5-foot-10-inch frame out of the driver’s seat and strides back to his clearly intoxicated passenger. The usually jolly worship leader at ECU’s Campus Crusade for Christ group, Bryant points his index finger at the passenger and tells it how it is. “You need to shut up and sit down. You don’t treat women like that! If you don’t stop, you can get off my bus right here.” The passenger sits,  and Bryant returns to his driver’s seat and accelerates off. The traffic light has long been green.

“I put up with a lot of crap, but that kind of thing – that’s not cool,” Bryant says over his shoulder. “I mean we have training for situations, but a lot of it is based on instinct. It so often depends on the situation.”

Bryant has been driving the purple and gold buses back and forth to downtown for three of his four semesters with ECU Transit. “My friend told me about [driving buses]. He did it while he was studying and said it was a pretty good job,” explains Bryant. “So as a sophomore, I just applied and got it.”

ECU Transit requires its drivers to acquire a permit, undergo 18 to 20 days of training before sitting three tests with the DMV. “It’s not a short process,” Bryant recalls. “Driving a bus is much different to a car. It’s longer, it’s wider, it’s heavier and you’re carrying a lot of people.” Pirate Express drivers undergo additional training in how to recognize and deal with dangers and unruly passengers.  

Once Bryant collects his bus from the depot at 10.30 p.m. each night, it’s his bus. What he says, goes. “I’ve been hit, hit on, sworn at, danced on and more,” Chandler says smiling. Last night he threw passengers off at an early Copper Beech stop. But, “there’s no fighting on my bus.”

Closer to 2 a.m. a static message comes over the bus radio – a fight has broken out on the Route 905 bus. Bryant adjusts the volume to hear his supervisor instruct the female driver. As Bryant passes Campus Towers on Cotanche Street, Greenville Police have just arrived and pulled the passengers off the bus into the 29-degree November air.

Davidson is not ignorant to the challenges Bryant and other drivers face. “The most visible challenge is student behavior,” he states. “Over time we’ve seen an escalation in the events of fighting on the bus, people being sick on the bus, people doing other kinds of damage while they’re on the bus, graffiti and then any general kind of damage.”

Davidson details the extensive attempts to curb student behavior. “Technology has probably been the area in that we’re most proud and where we’re working right now,” he explains. “We have GPS so the buses are being tracked and we can see where the bus is on a map, so if we’re having issues on a bus, if there is a fight, we are better equipped to work with law enforcement to get them to the bus.”

Crystal Trace, a recreational therapy major living at The Bellamy, sees the benefit of the night bus service. “The drivers put up with a lot – I’ve seen one clean up vomit before – but if there were no buses, I’d have to drive,” she asserts.

Bryant agrees. Although the Greenville Police Department has communicated an overall decrease in driving with intoxicated charges since the service started, Bryant says the biggest risk for him are drunks on the road. “I’m always watching,” he explains, touching the air break pedal slightly as a car pulls out of a nearby driveway.

Bryant makes seven trips between The Bellamy and the downtown hub before driving his bus back to the depot beside Pitt County-Greenville Airport. He sets down the bus, cleans it out and tops up the fuel tank with 25 gallons of gas. He finishes up about 3.30 a.m.

“Thankfully tonight’s Friday, it’s the weekend, so I can sleep in,” Bryant says, reflecting on his growing tiredness. After working his five hours at $15.25 per hour last night, he turned into his bed at 4 a.m., only to wake at 8 a.m. for his community corrections class an hour later Friday morning. “The nights are long, but it pulls in the money.”

Bryant will graduate in May 2012, but sees this job as something leading into his future as, hopefully, a parole officer. “Some people sit behind a desk, others in an office,” Bryant says, adjusting himself in this seat. “But this bus – this is my office.” 

Trifold increase in international student athletes studying in American Colleges

Racing from training to the dining hall for a quick but wholesome dinner before retreating to her dorm for the night is a typical weeknight for Dana Gray. A freshman tennis player for East Carolina University, Gray is one of three international student athletes who make up almost one third of the team. Like a growing number of other student athletes across the world, Gray has moved to the United States to pursue an academic sporting career.

The rate of international student athletes studying in American colleges has almost tripled since 1999/2000, according to the 2010 National Collegiate Athletics Association Student-Athlete Ethnicity Report. Making up little more than 1.6 percent of all collegiate athletes during the 1999/2000 academic year, international students recruited to play for American college teams has risen to greater than 4 percent or 17,000 athletes during 2010. 

University of Tennessee Associate Professor of Recreation and Sport Management Robin Hardin has been researching the increase since 2007 and said international student athletes are attracted to American colleges for the increased training opportunities along with the opportunities to pursue tertiary education. “In some countries once you start excelling in athletics you’re pulled from the educational system,” Hardin said. But migrating to American colleges provides students with enhanced “athletic training resources and medical resources,” he said, adding,  “The facilities are usually better on campuses than they are for some athletes internationally.”  

Gray’s hometown of Rotorua on the North Island of New Zealand has only 56,000 residents and no squad training facilities or options to pursue tennis beyond the club level.  But even nationally, “there honestly isn’t anything, especially in New Zealand,” Gray said. “You’re so isolated. If you were in Europe maybe [there’s the opportunity to pursue competitive tennis] or if at least you had so much money that you could go on the pro [tour].” But at ECU, she said, everything is provided. “You have all the facilities you want, the coaches you want, everything is planned for you,” she said. “All you have to do is show up” – an idea foreign to many international student athletes.

The American collegiate sporting market is vastly different to most nations in the world, with athletics programs receiving large endowments from alumni and corporations alike. According to a 2000 collection of articles, The Business of Sports, college athletic directors are charged with the responsibility to improve their programs in order to increase donations and subsequently improve their training facilities, coaching and support staff. However, it is college coaches who are delegated the role of continually searching for the best talent and recruiting athletes from American and international competitions to boost their sporting teams.  Hardin said coaches are recruiting athletes regardless of their nationality or location.

Daniel Woods, 18, is an engineering freshman on the ECU swim team. A gold medal recipient at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games for his home nation of Wales, he credits his recruitment and at least nine other ECU swim team internationals to skill. “I don’t mean to sound big headed, but I guess it’s because we’re better,” Woods said. “We get selected to swim for international teams because they see our times and know that we can make their team better. It’s the only reason they do it. They don’t need to fill out a diversity index or anything like that,” he said.

Recruitment to college sports teams used to be achieved by coaches travelling around to high schools or spending six weeks in Europe scouting, however, Hardin said technology has made it much easier. “If I’m a swimmer, tennis or volleyball player in Romania, I can make a video clip of my match and email it to a coach or they can watch something live over the Internet,” he said. “The technology has really helped coaches be more exposed to those athletes and see what the athlete’s ability is.”

Along with technology, the rise of recruiting agencies has led to the increase of international student athletes. Athletes pay agencies, such as Play Atlantic – the New Zealand company Gray used after being disappointed from her personal attempts – to create online profiles and upload videos onto YouTube to send to coaches abroad in order to secure full-scholarship positions on sports teams across the Unites States.

Gray and Woods are both part of the 63 percent of Division 1 international student athletes studying on full scholarships, according to Hardin’s current research. Labeling her scholarship a “free ride,” the opportunity to pursue tennis and receive a free education was one of Gray’s biggest influencers to study in America. Hardin found only 10 percent of all international student athletes were receiving no financial support.

However, everyone does not appreciate the use of recruitment agencies to secure team places on scholarships. Woods was cautious in stating he used an agency, preferring to say the coach recruited him. “When I was signing up for the NCAA, they asked if we used an agent, and my agent kept saying ‘Don’t say yes’ because it’ll cause a whole lot of complications. It’s really strict,” Woods said.

Further, the arguments against international student athletes competing abroad are rising. Following the tennis season last spring, Baylor University was ranked the top university in Division 1 Tennis without any American players. Women’s Tennis has the highest rate of international players, with an NCAA estimate of more than 35 percent in Division 1 teams, a figure apparent at ECU.  However in the junior levels this is prohibited, with the National Junior College Athletic Association enacting a limit on international students on team rosters. Similarly, the NCAA has also received pressure to make a similar ruling as criticism rises over the increase in international students, especially when they take opportunities away from local students.

As Hardin’s research explored, many international student athletes have to abandon their education after they begin to excel in athletics. That means they are exposed to higher levels of competition and become fiercer in their ability. For those athletes who are unsuccessful as professional players, the American college market is a second chance for sport and their education. So along with increased experience, many athletes are entering as freshmen older than their American peers. However, to avoid such age and experience inequality in the future, the NCAA has made a ruling that from August 2012, all players must commence their collegiate sporting careers within six months of their high school graduation – a ruling that could have effectively prevented Gray from securing her place.

According to Hardin’s current research, although 47 percent of Division 1 international student athletes are from Europe and 24 percent from Canada, the remaining number are from Australia, New Zealand and other places whose school year operates on a different schedule to the United States’. Gray graduated in December of 2010, although secured her scholarship in March 2011 for an August 2011 start. The NCAA ruling will prevent more athletes like Gray from securing team places because their high school graduations are greater than six months from the start of college .

Although the NCAA ruling will limit the athletes from some markets, the potential for further increases in the rate of international student athletes continues. Despite Gray and Woods securing places that would otherwise be for American students, animosity is non-existent in their teams. Woods said his swim team is “probably the best team at welcoming everybody,” and the tennis team is the same.

As Gray leaves the campus-dining hall to head back to her dorm for a few hours of study before leaving for a tournament the next morning, she waves to a group of students who say hello – her teammates. Although the ECU tennis team is not ranked in the top 50, Gray and her teammates put their hope in a new Russian player. According to Gray, “She’s supposed to be really, really good.”