Coordinating the travel logistics for a college football team is a meticulous and challenging task. It requires months of planning, attention to detail, and a passion for ensuring everything goes smoothly.
 
For Mackenzie Bardol, director of football operations for Mercyhurst, it's all about getting the team to the stadium, so they can perform at their best and focus on the game.
 
It's a new endeavor for the program, as the 2025 season is the first time the Lakers will play a full slate of Division I opponents after making the transition in 2024-25 to the Football Championship Subdivision.  
 
This season, the team has traveled for games at RV Youngstown State, No. 21 Sacramento State, No. 4 Montana State, and will head to No. 2 South Dakota State this weekend. The travel adds up to almost 4,900 miles in the first five weeks of the football season, while playing some of the best football teams in the nation.
 
The work starts before the schedule is even released publicly. Bardol starts contacting hotels, booking rooms, and arranging transportation.
 
"I always bug our athletic directors about the schedule as early as possible," Bardol said. "I had a lot of the hotels booked by March, but as the season continues and we get more games on our schedule, I can finalize everything with hotels and numbers."
 
The operations staff arrives days before the team at each destination, ensuring that everything is set up for the team upon arrival. They meet the team at the airport, helping unload equipment from the plane onto a box truck and ensuring buses arrive on time to transport the team to the hotel. The operations team sets up lunch at the hotel and makes sure that hotel rooms are prepared for the 80 players who just spent multiple hours on a plane.
 
Even with months of preparation and planning, there are still challenges that can arise on the road. One of the hardest parts is finding adequate walkthrough spaces for the team.
 
"Some of these areas are very limited in terms of space availability for the number of people we have," Bardol said. "It can be a challenge to find a space that works for us."
 
Despite the challenges, the team couldn't be successful without the work of Bardol and the entire operations staff. They take pride in knowing that they've done everything they can to make sure the team is prepared and ready to play.
 
"I love when the team gets to the stadium and everything falls into place," Bardol said. "All they need to focus on is playing their best on the field."
 
To stay organized and on top of everything, Bardol relies on her trusty binder. It's her "prized possession," filled with notes, schedules, and important information for each game.
 
"I have my binder. It's one of my prized possessions. There's a notepad in here, and basically, this lays out everything," Bardol explained. "You can see the tabs on the corner, for each game, little notes as to when we can get into the locker room. This is the packet for the Sacramento visiting team, which I typically get for every single game we go to. Hotels, meeting space rentals, so just having it all together in one binder is very, very helpful for me."
 
For Bardol and co., the most rewarding part of the job is seeing everything come together on game day. When the team arrives at the stadium, and all the pieces fall into place, they  knows the hard work has paid off, but the work is never done.
 
"I'm always looking for ways to make things better and more efficient," Bardol said. "I want the team to be able to focus on playing their best and not have to worry about anything else."
 
After spending four of the last five weeks away from the familiarity of home, the Lakers return to Mercyhurst, preparing for NEC play. On Oct. 4, the team gets to celebrate homecoming as they play LIU in the first game at Saxon Stadium in almost a month.