That’s not a typographical error on the Haskell Indian Nations University football schedule.

The Fightin’ Indians indeed will go to California on Sept. 15 to tangle with Redlands University. And they won’t be taking a bus, their customary form of transportation. They’ll be flying.

“Heck, some of our kids have never even been on an airplane before,” HINU offensive coordinator Joey McGuire said.

How can Haskell, an NAIA school with limited financial resources, afford to fly a traveling party of 55 or so halfway across the country?

That’s what sixth-year head coach Eric Brock was wondering when he first heard the Redlands proposition put to him by one of the school’s biggest benefactors, the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians.

Brock accepted an invitation from the tribal chairman to visit the area located about halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and to check out the Soboba Band’s 480-acre retreat and conference center where the HINU traveling party would stay.

“I went out there, and it was really nice,” Brock said, “but I told him we were millions of miles away and we couldn’t possibly bus out there.”

So Brock returned to Lawrence impressed, but still looking to fill a slot on the Indians’ schedule against a school within driving range.

Not to many days later, however, the Soboba chairman called and made Brock an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“He said he would fly us out there,” Brock said, “and that we could stay at the retreat for free. So I talked to the Redlands’ coach (Mike Maynard). He was all for it, and we worked it out.”

That wasn’t all. Brock also was promised the HINU traveling party could come a couple of days early so he could do some scouting of Friday night high school games.

“We would love to recruit the State of California,” Brock said, “and this gives us a chance to do that. California has more Native Americans than any other state, but it’s so far away it’s hard to recruit.”

Because of the geographical imperative imposed by limited recruiting funds, the bulk of HINU’s football players hail from Oklahoma.

The mid-September game between Haskell and Redlands, an NCAA Div. III school, will be played in 6,750-seat Ted Runner Stadium, a facility named after the school’s long-time athletic director.

In addition to owning property in the Redlands area, the Soboba band of Luiseño Indians operates a gambling casino in nearby San Jacinto.