Friday morning I left Cosi’s house with my duffel bag and back pack and began my walk to the train station. It never seems to matter how light I think I am packing, once I start having to walk with my bag it feels like all I packed was bricks…I met up with the team at a stop a few stations down the line and found out that there would only be five of us going to Poland that day. We had two games. In my mind I was wondering how that was all going to work out. I got the added pleasure of realizing that none of our post players were going to make it- so I think we all know who played the 5 on Friday…Our assistant Frank drove his car, which looks like a station wagon, with three of the girls, and Timur took our point guard Claudi and I in his friend’s car which is like a VW Golf hatchback- small, but big enough for just three of us. We made the drive to Poland which was a beautiful drive. Much of the ride is through countryside and tree lined streets. Everything is green and lush and picturesque.
We got to the gym in Poland with little difficulty.
(Ha ha, that is the back of my coach, Timur. I should have asked him to move, but I felt like a stupid tourist taking pictures so I was just trying to be fast)...
The wall of sponsos for the Polish team...and I am guessing one of their star players...
We played our first game with Timur’s instructions to only fast break when we had a clear advantage and to otherwise take our time because we only had five people. We played zone also to help conserve some energy, a match up 1-3-1 with me playing the bottom. Normally most people would rather play a wing because when you are on the bottom you are responsible for the whole baseline and it is a lot of running. I was happy to be the bottom in this scenario, however, because the bottom person is the only person who can see the whole court and must do most of the talking. I like having that role because it is not hard for me to talk on the floor, and I think it worked well for us seeing as how most of our communication on the floor has to be in English because of me, I speak English the best (praise the Lord, I would be worried if that were not the case)…Anyway, the 1-3-1 seemed to give the other team some problems. Offensively we struggled to get going. We were turning the ball over like crazy. It seemed that every play on offense we either scored or turned the ball over. There was not much middle ground. Thanks to our high shooting percentage and the points off fast breaks, we were able to build a solid lead and take the game. We were all pretty excited to have won our game with only 5 players. The other team had an entire squad- in fact, every other team there had a big squad. Coach was proud of us and we were proud of ourselves. It was a fun game.
After the game we girls were doing our post game cool down and the assistant coach, Frank, came over and told us goodbye. As he walked away I asked one of the girls where he was going, I was pretty confused, where could he need to go? We were in another country. She said he was going back to Berlin to coach another team. He had driven out to Poland basically just to help get us out there. ..So after our showers we loaded up Timur’s car with our bags and he drove to the hostel and us five girls walked there. It wasn’t too far. I had a great conversation with one of my teammates, our other point guard, named Tini (Short for Christina I believe). It turns out Tini had been an exchange student to Georgia during high school and had some great experiences while there including winning the state championship in basketball and track. She went to a private Christian school and lived with a Christian family. She told me that her family had asked her if she was “saved” and she had no idea what they meant. She told them she was Catholic. Tini said that she went to church with her family every Sunday for five hours and she went to chapel in her Christian school. When she left Georgia, she had indeed become “Saved.” It was great to talk to Tini and to get to know her a little bit. We laughed about some Christian stereotypes, talked about foods we love to eat and foods we miss from America, and the food that we are happy to have in Europe (like German rolls, YUMMMMM)…
At our hostel we took our stuff to our rooms. Tini and I were roommates. Our room was pretty fantabulous.
With a great view.
Our room was connected to the other two rooms of our teammates by a common bathroom. We went downstairs where a meal was provided for us. I don’t remember what we had that first day, but I do know that every meal we had in Poland was good. I also know that every meal in Poland included dill. We laughed because there was dill in the soup, in the rice, in the mashed potatoes, and in the chicken. Tini had already given me the rundown on Poland:
1. The beer is cheap
2. The cigarettes are cheap
3. The chocolate is cheap (and really good)
4. People like to steal cars.
We now added to the list:
5. They put dill in everything.
And soon we added:
6. Their refs will not call anything for you if you are not Polish.
We went back to the gym around 7 for our 8 o’clock game. We put three girls in the back with Claudilaying across their laps, and me in the front seat with it pushed nearly all the way up. Timur drove us and I am sure we looked very intimidating pulling up- like clowns in a little circus car…But it is okay, we didn’t need intimidation. With our 1-3-1 and potent offense we won another game, despite the fouls called on us and not called for us. It seemed like the refs would start out calling a lot of fouls on us and then realize that we only had five players and it would ruin the game if anyone would foul out, so they would back off as the game went on. I think it was in this game that I had 30 points, which surprised me to find out because it didn’t feel like it. I mean, I knew I had scored well, but it just didn’t seem like that many.
After our second win we returned to our hostel and ate. We then hung out for a while in Claudi, Filly, and Dani’s room. (Apparently to be a part of the fantastic five, your name has to end with an “ee” sound, of course I am Jessie and my roommate is Tini.) The girls sipped on beers (they had me try a sip, I thought it tasted like bad apple juice) and I had my water and chocolate. Filli saw me downing the chocolate bar and she exclaimed, “You eat chocolate like bread too!” I laughed and agreed, glad to know I wasn’t alone in my chocoholism. (I had purchased some of the cheap and tasty Polish chocolate, it was very good)…We talked about all sorts of things including the war in Afghanistan, Obama, Christianity, and more. We laughed a lot as well and joked around- especially after the girls told me that our assistant coach Frank had told the girls in his car a story about “someone he knows” who had a babysitter look after their baby. The baby would not stop crying when put to bed so the babysitter called the people and said “your baby won’t stop crying, I think it is because of the clown in the room.” Of course the people answered, “We have no clown.” The girls were freaked out by this story, I started laughing and told them I have heard that same story in America, and it is like an urban legend and Frank is a liar. They thought this was hysterical, especially the part where I called Frank a liar. We all laughed and I told them that I bet Frank was preeeetty proud of himself as he drove home, thinking that he had gotten them all to believe the clown story. The rest of the weekend people would randomly call out, “Frank is a liar!” or “YOU are the clown!”
Saturday morning we got to sleep in, which was very welcome. When I woke up the first thought in my head was, “we have subs today!!!” I told this to Tini who thought it was hilarious. When we got to the gym and the other girls arrived we five were all cheering. In the third me we struggled a little bit to get a rhythm again. I was moved back out to the guard spot, and for a spell, back to the wing of our zone, but that was soon changed to me on the bottom again. We were playing a very young team so our struggle to get things going didn’t hurt us too badly and we were able to build a big lead. I think we ended up winning by nearly 30 points. The very bad news about this game was one of our players who had just come, Weibke (sounds like Vipka to me), got undercut on a turnaround jumper and landed on her defender’s foot and rolled her ankle. She will probably be out of basketball for a month.
The second game the five of us who had by now played three games in a day and a half were getting run down (we had all five played almost the entire game of each game bc the first two we had no subs and in the third one player fouled out early in the game and Weibke rolled her ankle). This was not a good combination with playing the home team. Nothing was going well for us. We started slowly, struggled to communicate, and could not get a call to save our lives. It was a team we should have beat by 20 but we were going back and forth with them. It came down to the end of the game. We had a 1 point lead and they had the ball. With just under 5 seconds left one of our players got called for a foul, putting us in the bonus (there is no one and one, it is all double bonus) and the girl hit both free throws to put her team up one. It was extremely frustrating. Timur called timeout to set up a play and to advance the ball to half court.
Coming out of the timeout we ran to set up our play. Timur started yelling last second instructions that I was unsure of and I decided to just run the play he had drawn up. No one else did. In the scramble to get open, Tini was hit hard by one of their players and knocked to the ground. Our inbounder was shocked by what happened to Tini and did not throw the ball in to me. The ref called us for 5 seconds and that pretty much sealed the game for the other team. They inbounded the ball, we foulded, they hit two free throws, the game was over. Our run of wins was over (we didn’t lose any games in the tournament last weekend either). We were exhausted. Timur told us we should not hang our heads. He told us that everyone loses games sometimes and it is okay and also that we had a lot of challenges that we had faced. We agreed. Normally I absolutely hate to lose, okay I always hate to lose, but this one didn’t burn me like usual because we really did have so much adversity through the game.
Sunday the adversity did not stop. We got up and went to breakfast at 8:30. Our game was supposed to be at 11:30. Our opponents showed up to breakfast already dressed in their uniforms. I thought that was weird. We ate and went back to our rooms to rest and pack up for the game. We had an hour and twenty minutes before we had to leave….or so we thought. About 20 minutes after getting up to our room coach came and told us that the schedule had been changed and no one had told him till just then, we had to leave right away. We scrambled to get our stuff (okay, everyone else scrambled, I had already packed thinking that I could lay back down till it was time to go) and went to the gym. Upon arriving we had 6 minutes to warm up. SKETCHY. The whole thing was sketch. The other team knew about the change in time but we didn’t? Sketch. Sketch sketch….
So we warmed up the best that we could and went out to play. Again we started slowly, no surprise there, we had a 6 minute warm up. Again the calls were one sided. This time however, it had even worse effects. One of our girls was on a fast break, sprinting the left side of the floor with the ball, and a player from the other team was running alongside her. When Filli went up for the layup the girl knocked into her, sending her crashing to the floor in pain and screams. Everyone stopped. It was obvious that something beyond an ankle roll had just happened. The Polish team went back to their bench, most of my teammates went to circle up around Filli. I stood back and watched, angry that the officials had let things escalate to this point. It is their job to keep things under control. Yes, injuries happen, but they are WAAAAAAAY more likely to happen when you don’t call fouls to keep players in check. Filli had to be carried from the floor. Our coach decided that we’d had enough and he didn’t want to risk anymore injuries. He calmly and kindly went to the coach of the other team and told them that it was nothing against them but we were not going to finish the game. He explained that we had hardly any players to begin with and now we’d had two big injuries. The coach understood and his team apologized for Filli’s injury.
The tournament officials asked us if we could do the trophy presentation quickly before we left. We agreed. We were given the second place trophy, the team we were playing took first. I was awarded the tournament MVP and received a duffel bag and a t-shirt. That was a fun moment…
After taking pictures with the other teams from the tournament we packed up and got on the road. I was with Fransi, Tini, and Dani. Timur took Filly and Claudi so they could go to the hospital. Louisa and Linsa went in the car Louisa had driven up. The ride home was just as beautiful as the ride there with scenery that left me thanking God.
As we got back into Berlin we were on the East side and I saw the area where they have kept part of the wall. It is covered in art work. It is crazy to look at that wall and to be reminded of what human beings will do to one another. It is hard to believe how recently it was that the wall went down…The girls on my team like to tease one of our players who lives in the “East Coast” (that is what they call it, ha ha!) because the west side is so much nicer than the East…but when you think about what happened in the East and how oppressed it was from developing, it makes sense…Anyway, Fransi dropped us three off at the train station and Tini and I said goodbye to Dani. Tini and I sat in McDonald’s and ate cheeseburgers and talked for a little bit- Tini could have left but she waited with me for a while since my train wasn’t due for an hour. I’m telling you, these people are KIND.
Soon enough I was on the train ride home and exhausted. When I got into Falkensee of course it was raining. I used the handles of my dufflebag like straps and wore it on my back, then slung my backpack over my shoulder and began the walk home. It’s funny, with my ipod going and the music keeping my thoughts moving, the walk through the rain was pleasant. Matt Maher’s song, “Hold us Together” came on and I sang along (as if I needed one more reason for Germans around me to think I am crazy)...
I love the words to the chorus,
Love will hold us together, build us a shelter, to weather the storm
And I’ll be my brother’s keeper, so the whole world will know that we’re not alone.
Even on that walk home I was not alone. I thanked God that I am never alone. I thought of the TMC team and how they have so much- teammates who love one another and who love God…I thought of my own team who I am already growing to love. I got home and Claudia asked me how the weekend went..I was in such a good mood I almost answered that it was great, then I remembered the injuries and how things ended…but despite the injuries and ref drama, it really was a great weekend. The conversations and friendships built left me with a light heart.
1 comment:
Jess, it's such a blessing to be able to see how you are and what the Lord is doing on the other side of the world. Thank you for sharing! I'm praying for you and your team!
God bless,
Stacey Coombe :)
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