Catching Up

March 2, 2010

Good morning USA! It is late Tuesday night here in Australia, but mid-morning back home. It has taken me some time to adjust to the time difference, but I am finally getting my body clock settled and getting into a daily routine. It is definitely not as difficult on the body traveling west as it is traveling eastward back home. Both times I have flown over here it has not taken very long to get acclimated, but returning home for the holidays was a nightmare for me.

Anyway, the past week has been very busy. I had a fun media day after arriving in town last week. I spoke with the local paper as they did a nice feature story for the Kalgoorlie Miner. I also spoke with the local television station and did an interview with them about being the new ‘import’ player for the team. It is fun doing that type of stuff, but somewhat surreal. To me, why would anyone really care about some Yankee, but the town is quite small and they really embrace the basketball team.

After getting that stuff settled, I picked up my new Toyota Camry. Just like home, except for everything being on the opposite side! Driving has not been much of an issue, even though it is on the other side of the road, but there are some other major differences. There is an excessive use of round-a-bouts throughout the streets. My indicator is on the right side of the wheel and my windshield wipers are on the left, thus I find myself trying to signal a turn and the result is my wipers going at full speed. I also continuously walk to the left side of the car to get in as if I were driving back home, but this is where the passenger sits. A simple solution to this problem, I just ride as a passenger as often as I can.

Basketball wise, last week we had training on Tuesday and Thursday nights before heading to Perth for a weekend Blitz tournament. Training went ok, and when I refer to training that is what they call practice here. I have found the dialect can be confusing at times when I assume I know what they are talking about. They say let’s get a burger, I order one and get a chicken sandwich. They say let’s have tea, I ask for English Breakfast tea but we all sit down for dinner. They say let’s get some whiskey, I grab for the Johnny Walker and we are all happy!

Basketball last week was a bit difficult adjusting to a new offense, the jet-lag, and just getting up and down against new competition. After spending five years in the same system of basketball it is a challenge to adjust to new offensive and defensive schemes. After some time and repetition it all will be ironed out. Luckily this past weekend really helped in those regards.

Our team did not perform very well over the four games, and I was not personally very satisfied with my contributions. I played hard, was solid on defense, but my shots were not falling and I was not as proactive as I needed to be in the offense. It was also quite difficult in that several of our key players were missing last week for training and for this weekend’s games. Mike Haney, our other import arrived Sunday afternoon from Kentucky. Mike is a power forward for us and has played with Goldfields the past three seasons after finishing his collegiate career at Western Kentucky University. He is a very solid player and kind of the pulse of the team. Training tonight was much different with Mike there than the previous sessions I have attended. Hamish, a guard from the eastern states of Australia, arrived yesterday and practiced for the first time tonight. He is a young player, but talented and should help the team greatly.

The road trip this weekend was a lot of fun. It takes about six hours to get to Perth from Kalgoorlie. You take the Great Eastern Highway from the main street in Kal straight to downtown Perth. 600 km’s of straight desert highway. It is actually a very beautiful drive with terrific scenery, kangaroos, and small towns approximately every 200 km’s. I was riding with a teammate and a friend of his, about halfway to Perth and 15 minutes outside of a town called Southern Cross, and we had a tire blow out. We jacked the car up, pulled out the spare, and took the jack down. As the jack held less and less of the car’s weight we watched the tire deflate more and more. Jimmy’s spare did not have enough air in it. Luckily we were caravanning with another car and we went to town and filled the tire up and were on our way again. Life lesson learned: Make sure your spare can act the part.

Once in Perth we played at the Kalamunda venue. We actually play there again the first weekend of our fixture before heading back home. The weekend was setup for four games, two each day, with reduced time and fouls. We play with the international rules, 24 second shot, 8 second back-court, the ball can be played on the rim, and for my benefit…6 personal fouls! In our first contest we defeated Rockingham in double overtime. I believe I had 10 points or so, but just did not play my best. That game was our only victory of the weekend. We were very short handed; playing against teams that had all their import players and their full Australian rosters where we were missing three of our top six guys. It is not an excuse for our losses, but clearly that does impact the outcomes. It was nice, however, to get a couple runs in and see what we really need to improve upon.

We were able to hit up the beach on Saturday and it was beautiful! I love it here! It is so laid back and no worries. The entire coast is just beach after beach and everyone congregates to them. We spent some time in the water, hanging out and walking the beach. It was just beautiful. Low 90’s and sunny. I can get used to that. After cleaning up from the beach and grabbing a bite to eat we headed to the casino. This is where I did work on the blackjack tables in a very short amount of time. After putting up a $100, I walked away with $400. It was a nice start to the evening, but then I decided to hit the tables again later that night with a friend. My luck was not the same this time around and should have walked immediately after this incident happened: get a pair of aces, $40 hand. Split, dealt another ace. Split, $120 now in play. Cards come: 10, 9, Jack. Dealer: flops 21. Push, lose, Push. Ouch. Needless to say, I gave some, most, of the money back after a couple of those hands.

Well, my time here thus far has been amazing. I am really enjoying myself and finding it difficult to realize this is what I am doing and how fortunate I am to be able to enjoy such a wonderful opportunity. I miss home and all the family and friends. I pray this finds everyone doing well and enjoying the cold weather! I’ll be thinking of you all tomorrow as I hang out in the pool! Cheers.