One year ago, on the coastline of Clearwater, Fla., hotels and tourists littered the edge of the beach in near-perfect weather. Looking out at the beach, the deep turquoise of the ocean blended into the sky, which was as blue as a robin’s egg.

From the hotel pool one can see the spring breakers on the white sand.

A group of women can be seen in the pool relaxing and watching the people. 

They are exhausted. 

They weren’t in Florida for the typical Spring Break experience like those around them.

These women belong to the ISU softball team, which had just finished playing two games that day.

Iowa State traveled to Fort Myers to play Friday and Saturday as part of the annual five-week road schedule that the team must embark on because of poor spring weather conditions in Iowa that don’t allow for games. 

During a week that is typically viewed by the average college student as a time to let loose, the Cyclones’ work ethic couldn’t go on break.

“When we travel we know our main goal is to play softball,” said senior Aly Cappaert. 

“As Division I softball players we know that’s what we have to keep our focus on.”

It didn’t bother the players, Cappaert added while watching the partying and celebration in front of them. 

They had a commitment to their teammates.

This road schedule isn’t just a chance for the team to travel to beautiful, warm locations while playing the sport they love, for them it’s also a way to build and grow as a team.

Twenty-one women.

Together, these 21 women are teammates but also travel partners. 

They all double, triple, even quadruple check their packing checklists to make sure they have what they need. Some of them have it down to a science; it’s a challenge to keep a travel bag to under 50 pounds while having to pack uniforms and the equipment needed to play for the weekend.

These 21 women all wait together at the airport.

They study together, watch movies, talk and eat with one another.

At the airport, it isn’t hard to miss the Cyclones, who are often seen studying or watching something on a laptop. 

They dress comfortably in ISU colored sweats, prepared for the long trip.

All the time spent traveling during the five weeks gives the women an opportunity to connect with one another. 

For many, it’s the little things that can resonate just as much as the big events.

“Even in sports there’s groups that tend to stick together,” said junior Cathlin Bingham. “[Making these] connections makes the team stronger. It makes us closer.”

Whether it’s sitting and rooming with a different team member for each trip, going to a teammate’s favorite restaurant in their home state or watching someone get their hair braided into cornrows by senior Brittany Gomez at the airport, connections are made at every turn off the field as well as during games and practice.

The players have said it all seems to blur together as they continue to journey through their collegiate career. 

With the demanding schedules of softball and traveling, it’s hard for players to keep track of everything that happens. 

However, there are certain instances that are memorable and affect the entire team.

Last season, Iowa State had just finished its weekend series against Baylor in Waco, Texas. The team was unable to fly to Dallas, where it would catch a flight to Iowa, because of bad weather.

The team managed to get a bus and make its way toward its destinations while attempting to avoid the storm.

The bus was the only vehicle on the road. Everyone else had pulled over.

It was pouring rain, and the landscape was constantly illuminated with bright flashing streaks from the rapid lighting.

Every phone on the bus was on GPS or weather reports as the players nervously watched themselves get closer to the colorful blobs on their screen.

That’s when it happened.

“At the same time all the iPhone tornado alarms went off,” Cappaert said. “The bus was super loud with tornado alarms. We’re like, ‘it says the tornado is six miles west of here.’”

Coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler and her assistant coaches took the short bursts of droning as a sign to find shelter.

They stopped at the nearest hotel in a small town.

Gomez recalled getting soaked just to get into the building and then having to wait while the rooms were booked. 

She remembers how scared some of her teammates were in the moment as they sought shelter.

“We’re just all in the lobby, there’s girls in the restroom, in the men’s restrooms, girls in the little closet,” Gomez said.

Eventually as the storm raged on, rooms were booked, and the next morning with only a few hours of sleep the team was able to make its way to Dallas to catch the nearest flights back to Ames.

Experiences like the tornado are hard to forget, but the little conversations and moments these 21 women value the most from day to day aren’t going to be as easy to remember.

But once they have finished playing, it’s the relationships that they’ve built with their teammates that will be most important to them.

Those relationships are also important to Gemeinhardt-Cesler, who is usually busy scouting and prepping for games during these trips. It takes a strong bond to create good chemistry on the field, and Gemeinhardt-Cesler is pleased with how each player reaches out to one another to form these lifelong relationships.

“For a lot [of the players], for the rest of their lives they’re going to be close to each other, and those times [of bonding] come from being in the tornado,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. 

“I think those [events] are intangible but at the core you’re still forming who you are and all that grows exponentially on the road.”