Tales of a Bus Driver; Fresno State at Idaho

Jan. 10, 2010

MOSCOW, Idaho - Jim Cochran has been a bus driver for 10 years with Wheatland Express. He has picked up and dropped off a lot of teams at various hours of the day during that span. When the Fresno State women's basketball team arrived in Pullman, Washington on Thursday at 11:30 p.m. he witnessed something he had never seen before and that is players happy and introducing themselves to him.

"Usually the players are rubbing their eyes like zombies," Cochran said. "This was a completely different atmosphere. It makes it worthwhile to pick somebody up at the airport at 11:30 p.m. It is not often you get a team like this when they introduce themselves."

Driving sports teams like the Fresno State women's basketball team and seeing games for free is the reason why Cochran loves being a bus driver. He has driven all the opposing teams that come to play Washington State and Idaho.

And being a native of Colfax, Washington, he is able to drive the team around, take the bus back to the bus yard, about six miles from the University of Idaho and then sleep in his own bed at night.

Cochran originally never thought he would be a bus driver as he worked for a telephone company for 35 years before he got laid off in 1994. With his wife still working full-time and Cochran enjoying fishing along the river, he was strongly encouraged to check with a friend to see if Wheatland needed a bus driver.

After filling out the paper work and taking the appropriate tests, he got his license and has been driving teams around ever since. One of this favorite memories was driving a bus when the NCAA Tournament first and second rounds was in Spokane. He was able to drive the Oregon team during the tournament.

"You have to enjoy sports to do this job," Cochran said.

Cochran certainly does enjoy sport as he was in the Cowan Spectrum watching coach Adrian Wiggins take his team through a two-hour practice Friday afternoon. He was in the stands when the Bulldogs rallied to beat Idaho, 72-64, on Saturday afternoon.

With all the team's Cochran has driven around he said that he has never had a problem with a coach.

"I've had coaches who want all cell phones off and other coaches who don't want anybody to talk," Cochran said. "We just go along with the flow."

Living just 15 miles from Pullman, Cochran is well-aware of what the Idaho athletic department has done over the past two years in football and basketball. As he talked about the success the Vandals have had and he also pointed out that when he picks teams up he tells them he doesn't haul losers.

That was certainly the case this past weekend when the Bulldogs were in Moscow.