If you’re headed up Interstate 35 toward Kansas City in the next few hours and happen to spot a familiar-looking, middle-aged man in glasses behind the wheel, don’t swerve off the road.

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

It’s Chris Del Conte, who’s the Willie Nelson of college athletic directors, given his penchant for life on the road.

The Texas athletic director took off on the open road in his Chevy truck Tuesday morning, bound for the Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, just after a short phone call with president Jay Hartzell at 9 a.m.

Why, you might ask, does Del Conte prefer pavement over planes when it often comes to business or personal travel?

“Why not?” he asked from somewhere north of Oklahoma.

Fair question.

After all, this is a guy who on a whim drove all the way to Milwaukee for the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament with a stranger and the man’s son after Austin planes were fogged in. Was there long enough for a win over Virginia Tech and a lot of Boilermaker free throws in a loss to Purdue, and then headed home.

But it’s not unusual for him to jump in his truck and push the pedal all the way to New Orleans for an SEC business meeting. You might say he's a driven man.

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The dude just loves driving.

“Oh, I love it,” Del Conte said. “Peace and quiet. You can think, you can reflect. No people coming in and out of your office. All the chaos around you. It’s good to just get in your car or truck. A lot of ideas come on an empty road. Once in a while, you’ll have a gem.

“Right now, I’m just looking at windmills, trying to pretend I’m not Don Quixote.”

Ever the romanticist, he also chooses to catch up on a few phone calls when he’s not groovin’ to ‘60s or ‘70s music or whatever pops up on his Sirius radio dial.

“Just heard 'Dream Weaver,'” he said of the Gary Wright ‘70s tune.

I've just closed my eyes again

Climbed aboard the dream weaver train

Driver take away my worries of today

And leave tomorrow behind.

Guess Del Conte could have taken a train. But he didn’t.

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Not along ago, he drove his daughter Sienna to California to drop her off last summer and then turned around and drove back by himself. Standard procedure.

He’s been doing it since he bought his first car, which was actually a CJ-7 Jeep.

“Old school jeep,” Del Conte said. “Bought it for $3,000. Monthly payment was 60 bucks a month.”

So heading out 738 miles to KC is a piece of cake. Well, except he can’t eat cake right now.

“Nope, I gave up sugar for Lent,” he said. “Can’t have anything with sugar in it. I’m not a big chocolate guy, but if there’s a snack around, I’ll eat it. Cookies, whatever.”

His favorite is a Zero bar, the white chocolate delicacy.

“But you got to freeze it,” he said. “A frozen Zero bar is very under-rated. I tried to give up carbs for Lent once. That lasted one day. Not going to work. An Italian giving up carbs makes no sense.”

Neither does driving thousands of miles, some might say.

He did make a mandatory stop at a Buc-ee’s, however. For a cup of joe. That’s it. No beef jerky. No BBQ sandwich.

Czech Stop north of Waco?

“Nope,” he said. “There are sweets there. Got to avoid that.”

So is he a speeder? Tell the truth.

“Easy, buddy,” he said. “I go within the speed limits … give or take 10 miles an hour.”

How about his mechanical skills? Can he change a tire?

Don’t ask Hartzell.

The two of them were tooling up the road together to Dallas a while back when a tire went flat.

“It was a mess,” Del Conte said. “Little bitty tire. The whole thing was a mess.”

So does UT President Hartzell drive with him any more since?

“Short trips,” Del Conte said. “Just short trips.”

And did he spend any money at all in Oklahoma on this journey?

“I have not spent a dime in the state of Oklahoma,” Del Conte said. “Just passing through.”

He hasn’t really paid much attention to the cost of gasoline along the way. Hadn’t really crossed his mind.

“I don’t mind paying for gas in Texas,” he said. “Got to keep our boys in West Texas happy.”

Del Conte assures Texas could afford to fly him to his destination. Sark didn’t take all the money with his new pay raise to $10.3 million. And he’s not staying in a hostel in KC.

“Tom Bodett,” Del Conte said. “He left a light on.”

The shtick never shtops.

Until he arrives before the tipoff for Tuesday night’s women’s final between Texas and Iowa State, he’ll head on down the road and get lost in his thoughts and meditate on life and listen to some good ol’ classic rock. Like Dreamweaver.

“Just me and a bunch of 18-wheelers,” Del Conte said. “Hitting the black pavement. Becoming one with America.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte makes road trip to Kansas City