New Season, New Country, New Opportunity

What's going on guys? It has been a long time. If there is anyone that is reading this and waits in anticipation for blogs then I'm sorry. I have been on summer vacation but the time has finally come to get back to work. I had a great summer and I plan on doing a few blogs about it over the next couple weeks while I am going through pre season.

I am currently sitting on the couch in my new apartment in Blois, France. I managed to finally make it out of Switzerland and take my game to another country. My new team is ADA Blois Basket and I am very excited about the opportunity to play in France. It has always been my opinion that France is one of the top basketball countries in Europe and now I am playing here. ADA Blois is not in the top French league (Pro A) but actually in the 3rd league (NM1.) The team wants to move up into Pro B (2nd league in France) and they hired me to help them to achieve their goal.

The team is very serious and professional as opposed to last year. In Massagno we only had 5 professional players and they were all Americans. My new team is made up entirely of professionals players and staff. NM1 rules state though that there can only be 1 American on the roster and that is me. The rest of the team is made up of French players. The guys are extremely nice and I have been very fortunate to have played with some great guys over the years and this appears to be the case again.

I arrived in Blois on July 27 and on July 28 we got down to business. The practices here feel more like Marquette practices than anything I have experienced so far in my professional career. Today for instance we went to the track to run sprints, then went to the gym to play 3 on 3 for an hour. After a 4 hour break we had a full team practice for 2 hours. Needless to say I have been very sore for the past 2 weeks. Even though it is a lot of work, our coach seems really good. He works us hard but he doesn't yell and scream. He seems like he genuinely cares about the team and it is easy to work for a coach like that.

The first week and a half here have been good even though Liz is not with me. We thought I was leaving in late August so she was going to come with me then. Unfortunately the team wanted me out here earlier and she had prior commitments to attend too. I can not wait for her to come out here and experience French life. I went downtown for the first time on Wednesday night and the whole time I kept thinking about how I can show Liz all these new things. It is going to be a good year.

That's all for now guys. I am excited about blogging again and I have some good stuff coming up.

Until next time.