Playing Catch Up!

Goodness it has been a while since I last blogged!




MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE....& HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Being that it is around Christmas, I have some time off from my whirlwind-of-a-life…work.

I talked to my Dad & Mom the other night on the phone and they asked me “what’s new with you?” I answered, “not much” but then I started talking and I realized that I had experienced many new things and had a lot of things happen to me in the past year. I never thought I had a boring life before, but this confirmed the fact that I have the exact opposite of a boring life…and I thank my lucky stars for that!


Glance @ what I do in Germany:

I work at the Basketball Club, BG74 (Basketball Gemeinschaft Est. 1974), in Göttingen, Germany as the Head Coach of the 1. Regionalliga Women’s Basketball Team (the same club where I was a player for 5 seasons). I couldn’t be happier with my team, they are a tight group, they respect one another, they are motivated to learn and to get better every day and they are serious about winning the league title. We are half way through the season and are sitting on top of the standings. This has been an invaluable experience for me as far as coaching and working with people in gerneral.

BG74 also hired me as the Head Youth Coordinator for the female side of the Club from U10 to U19. My job consists of finding new & qualified coaches for all age groups, assisting them in practices & games, by giving them ideas or drills which are not only necessary for fundamental development but will also keep the practices fresh & keep the kids having fun. Helping coaches to build quality practices which are progressive throughout the season, setting up practice schedules & gym times for the whole year, making sure the players are developing at each age group with fundamentals being the priority. As well as all of the pre-season athletics, footwork & agility preparation, jumping programs (body plyos) and everything else that goes into making sure that the athletes are prepared for the season.

My main focus within my job as the Head Youth Coordinator was to create and write a new Youth Concept (a system for development) for the entire Youth Department in our Basketball Club, for all players within all levels/phases of development from U10 –U19, both girls & boys. I have finished the new youth concept and now the most important part is to make sure that this concept is put to use on a daily basis.

Away from my Basketball Club, BG74, I also help run a basketball school called Vielchen@School (vielchen in German= violets in English, our club’s mascot…yes, you got it right, we are the Fighting Violets, sounds dangerous, I know). This is a grassroots project that I started doing 6 years ago (just under a different name). Now the name is licensed and it is run through our Club & our business partner, the Starting Five. This is a project in which we go into different primary schools throughout our region every week. We go into the P.E. classes and run a basketball school with shooting, passing, dribbling & defense to introduce the younger children to basketball. Most of the time, the schools put 2 or 3 P.E. classes together so we have about 65 to 90 kids in the program for an hour & a half to 2 hours with 3 coaches starting at 8:45 or 9:00am. It is pretty early for 65 kids, bouncing 65 basketballs! It is silly because the teachers are continuously amazed and impressed with the fact that we are so well organized and we have that much control over the whole group of kids with all those balls. I always get really serious with my reply to the teachers and suck em’ in with “the super-serious face” and then let them know my secret…I took a page out of the German’s book. Make the rules very clear and stick by them! I also add what I know works from my own past experiences, respect the children and they will respect you…laugh out loud and make the kids feel special every chance you have. The combination of these beliefs have led to success for me within my work.

This is the reason I used the term above, “my whirlwind-of-a-life”. I am a busy girl and I have absolutely no time for boredom…..which is a beautiful thing!

The Dentist:

When I was a young kid, we lived in the Coeur d’ Alene area and my parents always took us on trips to the “big city” (Spokane) whenever we had to go to the dentist. It was like going to Disneyland for us small town folk because of all the cool things we saw. We got sooo excited that we got to lift our feet into the air, as if we jumped across the boarder into a different State, AND for the fact that we always went to Dick’s Burgers after the dentist.

Whenever the conversation came up that someone in my family (there are 9 kids in my family) had to go to the dentist, my brother Joe was the first one in the car because he loved Dick’s Burgers so much. I remember after my mom would go to the window and order for 4 or 5 of us, Joe would be standing at the order window (in his striped jeans) just starring at the lady taking orders. I thought my big brother was weird for it and then one time I asked him what the heck he was doing? He said to me that it amazed him that the lady NEVER wrote anything down and that mom had just ordered food & drinks for 5 people and she NEVER messed up the order. I think this was one of Joe’s first grand impressions of Gastronomy, he was around 9 or 10 years old.
As a kid, you always have to have a reason to go through a little pain….or an incentive. Our incentive was the trip to the “big city” and being able to go to Dick’s Burgers afterward.

Recently, I went to my dentist here and he was shocked at how much amalgam (Metal) I had in my mouth (and for how long it has been there). He started to speak to me about removing all of it and replacing them with porcelain implants. I was like, “whoa, whoooooaa!” (in my head of course) and listened patiently to everything he wanted to say to me….everything sounded good. I then said to him, “Doctor, I do not want to waste your time, so how much do you think this is all going to run me?” He looked at me like I had 6 heads & came from outer space, and he said, “nothing, your health insurance covers everything.” I nearly forgot one of the most important reasons I have lived & worked in this fine country for so long. INCENTIVE, CHECK!

Over a time period of 10 weeks, I have had all of my teeth repaired and replaced. Since then, I have had some seriously, sensitive dinning experiences….but well worth it!

Alcohol:

If you have never been to Germany or Europe, you might just be better off with your alcohol intake. If you have been over here, you would know that the beer is some of the highest quality and best tasting beer in the world. The Germans don’t skim on this fact either. The Germans start drinking young and continue throughout their lives.
One of the best pictures I can paint for you is exactly what I saw the other day. I saw a man about 80 years old, riding his bike down the street, while drinking a beer, in the snow, with a big smile on his face!

On the other end of the spectum, when my little brother Tim was out here visiting me, with a couple of our buddies from college…they were shocked with what they witnessed. They walked into a bar and ordered a beer for each of them and then nearly ran into a couple of little kids that were not a day older than 13. As a matter of fact, they were so small, they could barely see over the counter to count out the coins they dropped up there after digging deep into their pockets. The bar tender counted out their money for them, poured the beer and then told the boys to go take a seat, that he would bring them their drinks. Tim & the boys were so amused by the whole situation that they took a seat next to the “young men” and asked each other, “how are these lil’ kids gonna lift this 1 liter beer?” Then clearly, the answer came to them…this was most certainly NOT their first beer. They pulled their beer to the edge of the table, right in front of them and then slid down in their chairs and they did “the tip & sip”. They tipped their beer on edge, not lifting them off the table and sipped down the beer until it was about half-empty and they could pick it up and finish it off proper!

My point is that they pour the never-ending beer here…and they do NOT discriminate! Every reason in the world is a reason to drink a beer.

Everywhere I have lived in Europe, I have noticed that the love of sports and alcohol go hand in hand. I have not really experienced somewhere over here that had one without the other. Football (Soccer) games are the prime example. Basketball is a fairly new sport which is becoming a lot more popular as of late but there are not so many traditional basketball fans over here…we have football fans who have been introduced to basketball and have become interested in the sport… becoming the main fan base. This means that the basketball games over here include the environment of a football match…drums, scarves, noise makers, chants throughout the game, bad language, bratwurst and of course the flow of alcohol throughout the building!

The reasons for drinking a beer within my everyday life include: we won, we played really poor…but we won, we lost, we played really well but lost (moral victory), we played really poor and lost (kicked our own booties), we had a great practice, we had a bad practice, we didn’t have practice, we got a new sponsor (and HAVE TO drink with them), after the games--a case of beer is delivered to the locker room where we have team bonding (these traditions run long), there is a birthday, a funeral, a wedding, confirmation, snow day from school/college (kindergarten), Jen learned another case in the German language, dinner is almost served (let’s drink a beer while we wait), of course my friends are getting together to hang out, our team’s sponsor is a bar/restaurant (free food & beer), trying a new food I have never had before (someone says, you should try it with a beer!)…..and on and on…..and on…

I realized that I was drinking too much and made the decision to stop drinking alcohol. It has been nearly 15 weeks and I have never felt better and more refreshed in my life. After 9weeks I had lost 4.5 kilos (roughly 9 to 10 lbs.) by not changing anything else in my diet except cutting out alcohol. This is a welcoming loss in my life because after practicing 2 to 3 times/day for the last 15 years and now being too busy with my job to find the time in my day to workout, well, let’s just say that things have worked out for the best!

Also, imagine this, it is 8:45am and there are 65 kids, dribbling 65 basketballs…running around, hyper as hell because they don’t have to listen to their normal teacher…and you are wishing at this very moment that you were as fresh as fresh can be!

My body:

Within the past year, I found myself fighting with my body. After playing basketball in college and then professionally for the past 10 years, I knew at some point it would catch up with me. I am so happy that I have had the chance to play as long as I did and I am convinced that I was able to have such a long basketball career because of my athletic foundation of playing youth soccer. I know for a fact that playing soccer throughout my entire youth, prepared and conditioned my body for a long durable basketball career.

After I stopped playing this past season and began as a full-time Coach, I was having a little trouble with my knee. I do remember twisting it in my last season but of course, had no time to fix it. I had an MRI done and found that I had to have my Meniscus and part of my Patella Tendon fixed and a lot of broken off cartilage removed. This was caused both, by me twisting my knee and by falling on my knees for years…basically, wear & tear. I had to make a choice, jump on a plane and head for home to spend Christmas with my family or have a knee operation. Being that my health insurance covered the whole surgery + my rehab, I figured I would be a dummy not to have the surgery done now. INCENTIVE, CHECK!

It has been 4 weeks since my surgery and I was at my check up yesterday, everything is healing well. The biggest challenge is being on crutches in the snow & ice. I am really happy that I had this operation now and I know it will be the best for me in the future!

I do miss everyone very much and I value my trips home, more than anything else throughout my year. I have said this before to my family and friends…I have been around the world but I have never found such special, genuinely nice, creative and down to earth people as are, the people from the Great Northwest!

That was a looong post, hopefully you feel caught up! MUCH LOVE.

Here is a movie link I made & posted on youtube.com about Allen Iverson coming to town to play against our Men's Basketball Team:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpIXlsfQcE

You have to cut & copy into your browser because the "insert link" function didn't want to work for me...

ENJOY!