Mini Me.

Last summer I came home and went to see a friend of mine while she was assistant coaching a girls AAU game. I played AAU a few years when I was in high school, but I always love getting the opportunity to watch young girls play because each year they get younger and each year they get so much better! Hard to believe I was a "cow on ice" up until my sophomore year in High School!

Anyway, at this game last summer I got the opportunity to meet one of my friends post players and her family. One thing led to another and I ended up coaching this little girl once a week throughout the summer, and I saw her improve SO MUCH in such little time! I was teaching her things that I am still learning out there on the court and she was soaking it all up like a sponge. I think I was as proud as her parents! This Christmas I sent her family a few things from Lucca, Italy, including one of my jerseys and once they received everything they showed me how appreciative they were. (Hopefully they dont mind me sharing.)

The first picture is my individual picture from my teams website, and the second one is a picture of my Mini me (I say mini, but she is almost my height) in the jersery that I sent her:

I love this!!

Now she is playing for her middle school team and her mom has sent me a few updates on how shes doing including highlights and I can that she learned alot this summer! And to top it off her younger brother who was always in the gym while we worked out has played in a few games, and all that time on the sidelines watching his sister workout has paid off for him as well. Looks like we might have to get Clint to coach him this summer on the other end of the court!

I am so glad I got the opportunity to help her out this summer and now I get to see her improve as she gets older!

Recap....

I have to back up a little because there's alot that has happened since the last time I blogged

(sorta, not really).

First of all, Merry Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know, I know, a little late, but thats why this is titled recap!

On the court, my team won 3 out of our last 4 games before our break! Losing the one game by only 1 point! It was sad because the game was in our control the whole time and at the end we were up by 2, and the other team made the basket and got fouled, then made the free throw to put them by 1 and leave our gym with the win. The good news was that they were a good team and that we actually competed! After the game, I was one of the lucky ones chosen for a drug test! Let me tell you, its not as fun as it sounds. For some reason I can never go to the bathroom right after a game, but I can wake up 3 times in the middle of the night to go NO PROBLEM. They chose 4 girls, 2 from each team, and since the other team was taking the bus 4 hours back to their city their girls went first. I ended up leaving 2 hours AFTER the game was over. Not the thing I wanted to do after a loss. For those of you who don't know me, I am a very sore loser!

Before that game we had a game down in Napoli. From Lucca, it is a good 7 hour bus ride, so we left the night before. On the day of the game we get to the gym and start warming up but we keep slipping. We tried wiping our feet, they tried sweeping the floor but it was something to do with the humidity. We warmed up for 20 minutes and then started the game. The first quarter was filled with turnovers and fouls because people kept falling! Finally in the beginning of the second quarter the refs called the game. (Only because one of my teammates slipped and pulled a muscle in her leg!)

So now we had to wait to see if the other team could find a new gym for us to play THAT SAME NIGHT, or leave (7 hour bus ride) and come back at another date. HMMM. Both sounded bad to me. I couldnt imagine packing up our bags, moving to another gym and warming back up and then trying to get mentally ready to play AGAIN. And on the other hand, I couldn't imagine leaving there and having to make the exact same trip again later to make up this game. We ended up rescheduling the game during the middle of the week, 2 weeks later. Good news was that we WON!!!! Making the 7 hour ride a little more pleasurable!

One more fun fact about Napoli, there is a garbage strike going on down there. Or there has been one for the past few years. Im not quite sure about the story, but I know that driving down the streets, they are all lined with bags of trash piled up on the side. It's really sad, because there are really NICE parts of Napoli, but the part most people get to see is this:

The final game before the break we won by about 20 to another team that is good, but they have alot of players with injuries. Either way, it really gave us some confidence and made our break THAT much better!

That's it for this short basketball recap! Next I'll update about my Christmas break!

HAPPY 2011 everyone!!!