Haunting

I know Halloween is over but I found something pretty scary on Macedonian television the other night. I was channel surfing with my wife after our game and came across the Wisconsin Badger football game on Macedonian television. The Badgers haunt me from 5,000 miles away.

Our television.

Living in Wisconsin during football season is pretty terrible for me. Every Saturday I have to deal with everyone wearing Badger gear and every Sunday I have to deal with the green and yellow Packer gear in church. It is like I am living in a nightmare.

Of course I am only half joking. I have a lot of friends who went to Wisconsin and my in laws are big Wisconsin football fans. My in laws have also been Marquette Basketball season ticket holders since the early 70's so I think that outweighs the Badger love.

My father in law is the Badger fan in the middle at the Michigan State game this year. I can't remember who won though?

I just can't get down with the Packers though. I have always not liked them. I just don't understand how people think the colors green and yellow look good together. My wife is a huge fan as well as the general manager of my team here. Unfortunately I can't talk a lot of smack being a lifelong Lions fan.

Culture Shock

In my 6 years of playing professional basketball, each season brings new experiences and surprises. My travels have taken me to 19 different countries and there has been something surprising in everyone I have been too. I can remember asking for ranch dressing at a restaurant in Lugano, Switzerland during my first year. The look on the waitress' face was priceless as she just stared back at me. I can also remember my disappoint my first year when I couldn't find Lucky Charms in the cereal aisle. I didn't know if I would be able to survive without marshmallows in my milk. Also, most shocking of all, no Mountain Dew in Europe.

I learned to bring my own ranch dressing and of course I eventually got used to no marshmallows in my cereal. I still haven't gotten used to the no Mountain Dew. Those little things are nothing compared to the culture shock I have had here in Macedonia though. I am not saying it is bad, I am just saying that it is different.

The language is probably the biggest culture shock in any country that I have been too. I can study a language all I want but when I get around native speakers it is completely different. In my other travels I have been to countries with Latin based languages and my years of studying Spanish helped me understand a few things here and there. I have also made it a point to take classes or learn the language where I am so I can communicate at the store or with the fans. Last year I became pretty good with French and the year before with Italian. Here in Macedonia, they speak Macedonian which is a south Slavic language. It just sounds like white noise to me when I hear people talk. I understand absolutely nothing and that makes it really hard to tell a cab driver who doesn't speak English where I need to go. It is also impossible to read because they use the Cyrillic alphabet. Thankfully a lot of the people here in Skopje speak English.

There are a ton of stray dogs here in Macedonia. When the city catches a stray, they don't put it down but instead have the dog spayed or neutered so it can't reproduce. You can tell the dogs that are fixed because they have a yellow tag on their ears. I guess that's a good policy but it is really difficult for me to see all of these random dogs. The Grimm family always had a dog when I was growing up and we even had three dogs at one point so dogs hold a big place in my heart. My teammate and I were walking home one night and we actually had three dogs follow us home. It broke my heart when we had to shut the door on them when they were just sitting there wagging their tails.

Another thing that tugs at me is the people that are constantly picking through the trash. I can't take a short walk without seeing at least one person going through the trash. It is just tragic to see so many people doing it. I don't really want to say more on this subject.

Apparently a horse and cart are still an acceptable means of transportation here in Macedonia. This was the most surprising thing I have seen here. The Amish are the only people I have seen driving a horse and a cart back at home. I think it is even more surprising because of how urban Skopje is. This is the capital city of Macedonia and there are people riding horses around it. I asked my teammate what it was all about and he said that is just how it is here in the Balkans. So, I guess it is not just unique to Macedonia.

These are just a few of the things that I have encountered in my time here in Macedonia. I'm sure I will see more things on my travels and I will just learn to live with them.

Craziness

I would say that I have had an uneventful basketball career and by that I mean that nothing crazy has happened to me in games. Yes, I have had a lot of personal and team success but nothing that makes a really good story. That was until last night.

We had been preparing all week long for our game against Kumanovo. It was a big game for them and for us as well. Kumanovo is celebrating their 65th year of having a basketball team and they picked our game for their big festivities. Their gym is big and holds 5,000 people but they wanted all of the room in their gym for their fans and banned the Family Aerodrom (our fans) from the sport hall. That was a little hard to believe too because our fans have not been banned from our other away games and just add to the great atmosphere at the games.

When our team bus pulled into town we had to stop at a police check point. I don't know the exact reason but I suspect it was because they didn't want any of our fans sneaking into the town. I have never had that happen to me before but I thought it was kind of cool. It just showed how important of a game it was.

The gym itself was old and for lack of a better word, crappy. There were holes in the walls, the chairs in the locker room were all broken into pieces and there was standing water in the bathroom that smelled terrible. I guess these things mean nothing to the fans because the gym was loud and packed.

I got dressed pretty quickly because I wanted to get out onto the court and get a feel for the rims. As I was walking out of the locker room one of the team vets stopped me and told me not to go out yet because I would get things thrown at me. I had to wait for the whole team to be ready so we could go out together.

We left the locker room after Coach's pre game speech and headed out onto the court to some of the loudest boos I have ever heard. It wasn't just boos either. Old men were spitting at us and little kids were flipping us the bird. The crowd also broke out into some pretty raunchy chants. My teammates told me they were just singing some fun songs when I asked them but after the game they told me what they were really saying. I don't know they age demographic of my readers so I won't put them on here but I would be afraid to tell my mother what they were saying.

We were ahead the whole game but the fireworks really started after halftime. The Kumanovo fans decided to give us a confetti shower while we were warming up after the break. It took awhile for the 2nd half to start because as soon as the custodial staff cleaned it up, the fans would throw more on the court. It was very frustrating because we just wanted for the half to start.

With 1:56 left in the 3rd quarter, a lighter was thrown from the stands and landed at my feet as we lined up at the free throw line and then the show started. The refs told both teams to return to their benches as they met at the scorers table. Macedonian rules states that if the game is delayed 2 times by the fans then the fans have 10 minutes to evacuate the building and the game will resume with no fans. If they fail to leave then the game is played the next day with no fans in the gym. We know this rule quite well because it happened to us once already this season at home.

The official at the scorers table packed his things up and returned to the locker room. The fans did not appreciate this gesture and pelted him with various objects as he was escorted out by security. The security guards also instructed us to return to our bench as things began to be thrown our way. We had a covered bench like the ones you see at soccer games. The security guards also surrounded our bench so we were not attacked by the fans. One of my teammates stood up briefly and an 8 inch piece of wood was thrown at his head and narrowly missed him. Things were getting really crazy.

We just assumed the game would be resumed the next day because the fans were obviously not leaving the stands. Amazingly the official came back out and ruled that only the 1st three rows of the stands had to be vacated and the game would be resumed. I guess this was not according to the rule book but I was happy that we would be playing again. We had 5 minutes to warm up and we would start the game with 1:56 left in the 3rd quarter after a 35 minute break. As we were warming up about 5 fans were flipping me the bird and kept calling for me to come over. I just averted my eyes and kept doing my thing.

We came out after the break and Kumanovo didn't score the rest of the quarter and we led by 11. The game was hot all the way to the end and we wound up winning 88-81. With about 3 seconds left in the game the fans started throwing more stuff on the court including full bottles of water, coins and lighters (a lot of people smoke here.) We were so hyped we won but left the court with our jerseys over our heads to avoid getting hit by anything big. The locker room was pretty rowdy after the game. We were high fiving and screaming. Our coach even handed out a few high fives which he never does so it must mean he was pretty happy.

I wanted to get out of Kumanovo after the game and return home to my wife. There was just one problem though, apparently there was a threat on the team after the game and we couldn't leave the locker room area without a police escort. I thought we were in the clear once we were on the bus but I was wrong about that too. Coach told us to pull the window shades and move to the inside seat of the bus. Apparently, the fans planned to attack the bus with rocks on our way out of town and he didn't want us hurt or cut if the windows were busted open. We had another police escort and thankfully nothing happened to us.

We had a team pizza dinner once we got back into Skopje which was very fun. Unfortunately it made Liz very nervous. She saw that there was a long delay in the game and was scared about that and when I didn't return right away she was scared something happened to us. I received a long hug once I walked into the door.

Skopje, Macedonia

I have some exciting and important news as you all eagerly await Very Bad Trip Part II. I have signed a contract to play in Skopje, Macedonia for the 2011-2012 season. The whole process moved very quickly but I am here playing for MZT Skopje and have already played my first regular season game. It was a little bit of a process getting here so here is the story.

Last Sunday, October 9 I received an e mail from my agent saying that I had an offer from a team in Macedonia. It kind of took me by surprise because I didn't even know I was being shopped around in that part of the world. In fact, I had to look at a map to find out where Macedonia was. I remember learning about the area in Western Civilization but that was as far as my knowledge went.

I am married and of course I have to discuss the situation with my wife before accepting any job. Liz knew as much as myself on Macedonia which was basically nothing. We went around and around but the team needed to know that night and we came to the conclusion that we couldn't accept the job. We just didn't know enough about the situation to accept it and were comfortable turning down the job for this reason and I thought that was the last of it.

I had an e mail from my agent the next afternoon saying the team really wanted me and they had offered more provisions for my wife and me in the contract. They even said that I could come and check out the situation and if I didn't like it then I could return home. This seemed great to me but I still had to talk it over with Liz. After discussing everything with her, we both felt comfortable accepting the job and making the journey to Macedonia.

The team symbol.

Things have been great so far and I really like the country and the city of Skopje. It is unlike every other European city I have been in because it is Eastern Europe and I have spent my whole career in Western Europe. That being said, I think it is great. The city is surrounded by mountains which remind me a lot of the mountains in Lugano. There are even snow capped mountains far off in the distance.

The management and the team have also shown to be great. The club has very high aspirations of winning the league and are actually one of the league favorites. For those that don't know, basketball is HUGE in Macedonia. The national team finished 4th in the European Championships this year which has raised the level a lot. We even have a current and former national team players on MZT Skopje.

So, here I sit in an apartment in Macedonia writing out this blog. This game of basketball has taken me so many places in this world and now it has taken me to Macedonia. I never thought that I would live in or even visit Macedonia but here I am. I am so thankful to be back on the court after missing half of last season due to an injury and fortunate to get paid doing something that I love.

Here is to a championship season for MZT Skopje!!!

Very Bad Trip Part I

Very Bad Trip is what the Hangover is called in France. I love this movie and would love to write a blog about it but I just can't do it though with what recently happened in my life. Fortunately, Very Bad Trip describes my trip to Austria and gives me a reason to show the French movie poster from the Hangover.

Last Saturday I received a Facebook message from an agent telling me he had a job for me. This actually isn't a rare occurrence. I have received numerous messages from agents claiming they had jobs for me. I had never heard from this agent before and had no idea who he was. After checking with my real agent, everything seemed to be legit. My agent and I discussed the job at great length and decided to give it a shot. We didn't know anything about the team so we included in the contract that I could opt out if I didn't like the situation.

I started my very bad trip on Tuesday morning at 9:30 am taking the train from Nantes, France to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for a flight at 3:30 pm. The train ride was 3 hours long and the seats on the train are pretty small but thankfully I had 2 of them to myself so it could have been worse. I passed the time looking at the beautiful French countryside and listening to my iPod. I think I even fell asleep for a little bit, which is crazy because I can never sleep when I'm traveling.

The train trip was just 1/4 of the journey. I had 2 flights to catch still and a car ride. My first flight was at 3:30 pm from Paris to Frankfurt, Germany. I arrived at the airport at 12:30 and had a few hours to kill so I stopped at the airport Starbucks and ordered a Chai Tea Latte. Even though I ordered a Chai Tea Latte, I received something completely different. That should have been a sign of things to come. I didn't care that much because I love Starbucks and was just happy to be drinking something.

I was booked on Lufthansa for my first flight and everything went great. It was my 3rd time flying Lufthansa and I like the airline a lot. The Germans are very efficient. As we were flying in we got a great view of the Frankfurt skyline. I haven't seen many skylines like that in Europe and I really enjoyed it. I guess the people in Franfurt like their skyline too because the basketball team in Frankfurt is called the Skyliners.

Frankfurt Skyline

My second flight was on Austria Air and was leaving at 6:00 pm out of Frankfurt. The flight was great and I was kind of excited to be in Austria. I have heard how beautiful the country was and I wanted to see a little bit of it but I also knew that this was a business trip and I was there for business.

I was met at the airport by the Coach, a national player and a player who was also there on tryout. I thought that it would be a short car ride to the hotel the team was staying at but I was wrong. I was very tired from my long day of travel but I was told that there was a 3 hour car ride to the middle of the Austrian Alps where the team had set up camp. What made this news even worse was that we were going to be coming back to Vienna in the morning to play a game. I wasn't very happy with the recent news but I wasn't in charge of anything so I just went with the flow.

I finally arrived to the hotel at 11:00 pm and was extremely tired and sore from my 14 hours of travel that day. It isn't easy or comfortable being 6'10" and 270 pounds and travelling in tiny planes, trains and automobiles. I was exhausted and had to get a good night of sleep because we had practice at 8 am the next morning.

I got up the next day at 7 am to a standard Euro breakfast of slices of lunch meat and rolls. I was excited to meet the rest of the team and for practice. It was a pretty easy practice and just consisted of walking through plays and getting a feel for the team. My legs felt very heavy from the previous day of travel. I was looking forward to getting on the touring bus and being able to lay down and sleep on the bus ride back to Vienna. I even had a dream of getting the back seat and being able to lay across all of the seats. That dream was crushed when I saw our means of transportation to Vienna.

Last year in France we took a bus with seats that converted into beds. It was by far the best means of transportation I have had. In Switzerland we took big busses too. The team I was with in Austria didn't even have a bus. They had a van! We fit 15 grown men into this big van for a 4 hour trip to Vienna. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life and would have welcomed an airplane seat. I would have even welcomed airline food because the team didn't feed us on the trip.

We arrived in the middle of Vienna around 2 pm. We got out of the bus and the assistant coach told us to be back there in 3 hours. I had no idea what was going on. Apparently we were there to do a little sight seeing as well as to play a basketball game. This gave me the opportunity to at least eat a little something. Normally I would never ever eat pizza before a game but the only other option was McDonald's and I didn't want that either. We did our walking around Vienna and it is a beautiful city. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures but I hope to take my beautiful wife there one day and do some real sight seeing.

After meeting back at the bus at 4:45 we set our sights on the gym to play BC Vienna. The game started out very well as we built a sizable lead of 20 points. I was playing very well too and then the tired and heavy legs started to kick in with the whole team. Our lead slowly sank away and we eventually lost in overtime. My legs felt like crap at the end of the game and to make matters worse I got hit 2 times in the same spot on my thigh. I knew that the van ride back to the hotel was going to be 2 times worse than it was going to the game.

As we piled back into the van, the teams thoughts turned to food. One of the players asked the coach if we were going to stop for food. The coach said yes but we had to pay for it ourselves. I have played professional basketball for going on 6 years now and have never bought my own meal on the road or after a game. Heck, my other teams even bought Liz meals when she traveled with the team. We stopped at a Burger King in Vienna and I purchased a double whopper value meal and opted for a salad instead of french fries. Since I had a slice of ham for breakfast and pizza for lunch, I skipped the fries and tried for something a little healthier.

On the ride home, as I was trying to get comfortable and listening to a foreign movie in a language I didn't understand, I was thinking hard about this new adventure. We arrived back to the hotel at 1 am and I only hoped that things would get better from here on out.

To be continued..............

Where in the World Am I?

That is a good question and one that I am asking myself quite a bit lately. There is a saying that goes something like, with great risk comes great reward so let me take a little bit of time to explain my current situation.

For whatever reason I have not been able to find a job for the upcoming season. My ankle might have something to do with it but I can assure you that it is 100%. I spent the whole summer working out and doing rehab on it to get it to the condition it is in now. I was all ready to go in August but had no team to go too. I talked with my assistant coach from last year and he presented an interesting option to me.

Since I lived and worked in France last year for 10 months I am eligible to receive certain benefits from the government. My old coach explained these benefits to me and I was very interested in receiving them. He also called up his friend who is coaching in Nantes, France at the Pro B level and explained my situation to him and asked him if I can come and practice with the team. I also have another connection with the team because my old teammate from Marquette, Dwight Burke, plays for Nantes. With these 2 connections, the coach from Nantes accepted me to practice with the team.

So, on September 7 I packed up my bags and made the flight across the Atlantic to Nantes, France and began practicing with the team full time. Being in Europe does a lot of things for me professionally. Most importantly it proves to interested teams that my ankle is indeed 100%. It also makes me readily available to teams as it is a lot cheaper for a team to check me out when I'm already on the continent than paying for a flight from Milwaukee. Plus since I am already here, I wouldn't have to deal with the jet lag that occurs after the long flight. Practicing with Nantes also keeps me in great shape and I get to compete against good competition day in and day out.

The only negative to the situation is that Liz is not here with me. We decided that it was better for her to stay at home because I might get a call and need to leave at any moment. That is hard enough for 1 person, let alone 2. It is really tough being away from her but we will be together soon again.

The situation has been good so far. It feels really great to be back in France and playing basketball as well. I love this country and Liz and I have made some great friends here in the past year. Nantes is a little bigger than Blois but it is a great city as well. It is more vibrant and lively because it is a university city. It seems like there is always something going on and the streets are packed. There is even some crazy elephant robot machine that roams around the city occasionally. I haven't seen it personally yet but I have seen pictures and signs for it.

I have done a little exploring while I have been here but not too much. The downtown area is pretty cool and there is a castle here too which I love. My favorite part of the city though is the little side streets. There is even one filled with crepe shops. If that doesn't say France, then I don't know what does.

I think this is the crepe street.

Basketball is going really well too. Like I said it feels great to be back out on the court even if this isn't my team. The coach here is great and is really helping me out. The team had a few injuries a couple weeks ago and the coach asked me if I could help them out and play in a friendly game against Limoges. Limoges is a club with a great tradition in France and they recently moved down from Pro A. I of course said yes because it could be a great opportunity for me to get seen.

The game went really well for me. I played 17 minutes and led the game in rebounding with a game evaluation of 13 and most importantly the team won in a thriller with a score of 88-87! It was awesome to be back playing in a real game. Now I just need a job of my own.

An opportunity was presented to me last week that I took. It was one of the weirdest situations of my life but it deserves a blog of its own. I'll save that for next time.

Until then...........

How I Spent My Summer Vacation 2011

Summer has pretty much come and gone for me and it was a very busy one. Usually, I take some time off from working out and basketball at the beginning of the off season but because of my ankle surgery I had to rehab and work out even harder to come back to my normal form. My first 2 weeks back at home I was still on crutches but when I got off of them I hit the ground running.

I was busy with rehab every day this summer. When I left France in June, my doctors were vague with what I needed to do. The initial protocol was non weight bearing on my right ankle for 3 weeks and then weight bearing with crutches for another 3 weeks. They said one month after surgery I could start swimming and riding the bike and after 2 months I could start running and after 3 months I could play basketball again. This was great but they didn't tell me how to rehab or things I could do.

When I got back to Milwaukee, I searched my contacts for people who could help me out. I called up my old teammate and friend, Tony Gries, and he gave me some great exercises to do for my ankle to improve my mobility and strength. The training staff at Marquette was also really great. Head trainer, Ernest Eugene, worked with me during the basketball camps applying treatment and doing crazy mobility exercises to my ankle. Ernest also referred me to Athletico Milwaukee and Luis Rivera. I owe Luis a HUGE thank you. He worked with me the most and really attacked my ankle and my rehab. I probably wouldn't have been able to come back to where I am now without Luis.

On top of doing my rehab I was also lifting and doing cardio everyday to stay fit for my return to the court. My rehab was going so well that I started running 1 week before July and only 2.5 weeks off of crutches. I started shooting again when I started running. It was just like riding a bike and it felt great to be out on the court again.

My agent called me in the middle of July to tell me that a team in Japan wanted to sign me but couldn't do so until they saw that I was healthy. There was a simple solution to this because the coach was American and from LA and the General Manager was out in California at the time. Technically it was before I was supposed to start playing but I consulted with my training team and they said I was good to go. So, I flew out to LA for this team to see me.

I thought the workout went well but the team thought otherwise. I won't go into the reasons for this because I still think its BS and the point of this blog isn't to bash people. So, for my sanity, I'll just let it be. C'est la vie.

I started playing 5 on 5 again at the end of July and was able to participate in the Milwaukee Summer Pro Am Championship weekend. The team I was on finished in last place during the regular season but we ended up with the consolation championship with the addition of myself and Dan Fitzgerald. It really felt great to be running up and down the court again with people in the stands. I even dunked on someone! I hadn't done that in awhile.

Consolation Champs

One morning in early August I received a text from my old teammate Wes Matthews asking me if I wanted to play some pickup at Marquette. He had said that D Wade was coming back and there were going to be some other good players there. I am not one to turn down a good pickup game so I came down. It was really fun to play with some old teammates again and there was an incredible collection of talent in the gym. After those pickup games I knew that I had recovered from my surgery and I was good to go.

August started and I didn't have a job. My agent had some leads but nothing worked out. I kind of suspected that was going to happen with the injury and the NBA lockout going on. Not that I was competing for jobs with NBA players but there is/was a trickle down effect. There were also enough NBA players saying they were going to head overseas that it slowed the markets up. While it is frustrating to not have a job at this time I just worked harder to keep my mind off of not having a job.

I traveled to Michigan in the middle of August for my sisters wedding. The wedding was by far the craziest wedding I have ever been too and it was soooooo much fun. Liz and I stuck around Michigan for a week and half after the wedding to see family and friends.

My sister and me on her wedding day!

Every summer in college I would come home after the summer school session and before the fall semester started. I would take the time to spend with my family and also to workout. I have some really great memories running the stadium steps and working out in the gym. I had the opportunity to do the same thing this summer and I took advantage of it. I treated it like I was in my own training camp. In the morning I would head to the track and in the afternoon I would head into the gym to shoot and do more conditioning with my dad.

The old stomping grounds!

I had a great time this summer and made some great memories. Liz and I lived back downtown on Lake Michigan and had a great view of the lake from our living room and bedroom window. I spent the mornings reading and drinking coffee by the window looking at the lake. I will definitely miss that. The summer was great and we got to spend a lot of time with our friends but it was time for something to happen.

In my next post I'll let you know where in the world I am.

Until then............