K elvin Sampson knows plenty about road trips. Tough, long, grueling road trips that test almost everything you know about yourself. Thrust into a head coaching role at age 25, Sampson quickly become acquainted with them at Montana Tech, sometimes having to drive one of the vans his team occasionally took through snow, ice, sleet, whatever. His wife Karen, then a nursing student with a heavy course load, remembers the team bus stopping to pick her up in random parking lots on the way to road games in Billings, a mere three hour and 22 minute drive away with only a few mountains climbs. One of the easy jaunts in the Frontier Conference.

No matter how endless the trip, Kelvin Sampson always remembered to call home. He’d find a payphone, often on the side of the road, and dial his parents

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