Henry Ford, the automobile manufacturer (and thus presumably an expert on travel), once said: "Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success."

That's increasingly true in preparing for travel to NCAA championships.

Short's Travel Management, which is improving its preparation for championships travel after one year as the NCAA travel provider, says institutions' own efforts to "get ready" will result in quicker and more efficient travel planning.

Kristin Fratzke, Short's NCAA account director, suggests a number of steps that institutions can take to prepare for championships travel.

"One of the first things we ask is that they go online and enter their contact information and travel manifests," she said. Those items (and much other information) can be submitted through the NCAA championships Web portal at www.shortstravel.com/ncaa
champs. "They can do this at any point before their championship; they could do it in the spring for a fall championship. We'll hold that information until the next year, and then all they need to do is go in and remove the people who aren't on the team anymore (for example, graduates, injured players), and add any new people.

"The teams are getting much better at doing this, further in advance," she added.

With that information in place, Short's will be better prepared not only to work with teams, but also with transportation providers. Institutions are able to put in preliminary travel preferences before they are selected, so that information is helpful in looking at flight availability, Fratzke said.

"Our process is to look first for commercial air space. We do our best not to have to split the teams up, but in today's world it's getting more difficult because the carriers are downsizing their equipment; there aren't as many large jets flying as there used to be. Our first attempt is to try to meet their request as closely as possible, and not split the team up if we can help it."

Under NCAA policy, depending on the championship, Short's could split a travel party into as many as three parts -- although in most cases the student-athletes on a team and their coaches will remain together, and will change planes as few times as airline schedules allow while in transit to a championship.

"If we're unable to find commercial space that's acceptable based on NCAA standards, then we also look at charter space."

Division I basketball teams are most likely to be assigned to chartered flights, since commercial flights are more difficult to obtain during March because of spring break and other competing needs. Last year, 40 men's teams and 29 women's teams flew on charters to Division I first-round basketball sites, compared to 16 men's teams and 15 women's teams that flew via commercial carriers.

Football squads also are more likely to use charter flights because of squad size and equipment, as are ice hockey teams, because they also travel around spring break and carry a lot of equipment. But participants in other championships are more likely to be booked on commercial flights than on charters, Fratzke said.

In preparing for travel, there are several things that institutions should know in advance.

"An important thing to know is mileage, and I think most do know that," Fratzke said. "That's not a difficult thing for us to enforce."

In order to fly, Division I teams must be located more than 300 miles away from a championship site (as calculated using Microsoft's Streets and Trips software); Divisions II and III teams must be more than 500 miles from a site.

Another policy, the "hub airport rule," specifies that teams will have to travel from a more cost-effective airport, rather than use a closer but more expensive regional airport, if the less-expensive option is located within 120 miles of a Division I institution or 150 miles of Divisions II and III institutions. Likewise, a team may have to deplane at an airport that is farther from a competition site, under the same criteria.

There are other things that an institution may be asked to do to help in the planning process.

"One thing we'll ask in basketball, because there are predetermined sites for Division I men and women, is to access our Web portal and input their travel preferences for each of the eight sites before traveling," Fratzke said. "When selections come out on Sunday, we can run a report and say, XYZ University, you're selected to go to this particular city -- let's see what your travel preferences are. We'll be able to process those much faster.

"We're working with our charter providers and commercial air carriers a lot further out this year in setting up some things, so when selections hit, we may be able to turn around and award flights right away, rather than wait for the carriers to come back with their information the next day.

"We're hoping that with all the preliminary work we're doing with the charter providers, things will happen a lot faster. That's what was difficult for the teams last year -- we didn't have the information to them in as timely a manner as they were accustomed. Everyone got where they needed to go, and they got home, but it wasn't as smooth as they, or we, would have liked it to be."

More than just a little preparation is needed for championships travel, but that effort should go a long way toward helping teams focus less on getting to a championship site and more on enjoying the event after arrival.

"It's a high-stress time for them," Fratzke said. "We know that travel is a very important piece of the entire competitive process when they reach championships, and we're working hard to make that a positive part of the experience."