Two weeks into the season, and we are 2-0!
8/13/10
Well, since the last time I posted we started the regular season, I’ve started to feel more at home, and I finally know the feeling of what it to be a “professional” basketball player. I have also learned where NOT to park your cars on the weekends, and a lot reasons of why I need to learn Spanish.
Firstly, the season has finally arrived. After a month of two practices a day, every single day, and four preseason games, we get to enjoy the beginning of a long regular season. What better way to do it then to have our first game/road trip on the island of La Palma! We set out on a Thursday morning at around 5am, which was kind of rough. We head to the airport in the capital city of Spain, Madrid. If you have never been to the airport in Madrid, it is definitely something to see. There are many different terminals, but the newest one is terminal six. Not only does it take 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other, it has the most unique architecture that I have ever seen in a airport. Large yellow columns with a roof much like the gym on Guilford College’s campus. Well the first thing I do when I get there, obviously, is get some American food. My teammate and I head to McDonalds where they were serving breakfast!! The McDonalds in Pamplona does not serve breakfast, and it’s kind of far away from my house, so I really never go over there. Finally, I get to enjoy a nice hot breakfast, and not plain boring cereal. As a couple of my teammates and I were walking around the airport looking in stores and what not, our other teammate comes up and says, “Dennis Rodman is here.” At first we were all like yeah, yeah, whatever, but he said no, he’s really right over there. So we walk, and walk, and walk, finally at the end of the terminal we spotted him. He was sitting there with his assistant waiting on his flight to Rome. Well, we all stood there waiting for one of us to ask him for his picture. Eventually, everyone decided that it really wasn’t worth looking dumb in front of a lot of people to ask him for his picture. So we ventured back to where our other teammates were and told them about him being in the airport. My teammate Inaki decided in fact that he really did want his picture, so we headed back down to the end of the terminal again. When we got there Inaki got out his phone and handed to us to take the picture for him, and he said “Dennis, Dennis, can I have a picture?” Well apparently Dennis had been on a redeye to Madrid, and definitely was not feeling too hospitable, and quickly denied my friend Inaki in a abrupt manner. We all laughed, and finally headed back to our gate and waited for our flight. Fast forward a couple of uncomfortable hours, and we are there! The beautiful island of La Palma, it’s covered with banana plantations and black beaches, yes black beaches. We settle in and get rested up for our game the next day.
It’s the next day and game time rolls around, and to tell you the truth I’m a little bit nervous. At this point there is a lot of pressure on me to perform well, not only for my team to be successful, but this is a business as well, and the more productive you are the more successful businessman you’ll be. Now, we get there about a hour and a half before the game, people are starting to come in the gym. The game atmosphere is definitely a little bit different than at home. It was quite possible the loudest game I’ve ever played in. We had multiple drums, horns, and a lot of screaming fans heckling us the whole game. This is my teams first year in the the 2nd division of Spain, it’s a really tough league and people are really unsure of how we will do, but this game we were really ready to play. We come out and go up about twenty points, and I’m feeling really confident about winning this game. All of a sudden, three pointer, three pointer, turnover, turnover, turnover, layup, and they are back in the game. It came down to the wire, but we ended up winning! I had 13 and probably 12 rebounds, but in Spain especially on the road your stats tend to get skewed a bit, but I guess it’s apart of paying my dues a rookie. We headed back to the hotel, and enjoyed our night, and headed back the next day..unfortunately the airline lost my bags. I’m not really sure how, because there were 12 other bags just like mine, but they lost mine which ended up being kind of a pain. The next game was at home, and we didn’t play the best, but were still able to get the win. I had 13 and 8 in that game. This was huge for our team, because in the four year history of our organization, which has been very successful, they have never been able to start the season 2-0. This week we play a team called Burgos which is only about two hours away. We played them in the preseason and won in overtime, so hopefully we’ll be able to win this game as well. They have a really good player named Micah Downs, he played a Gonzaga, and played a key roll for them. It’s going to be a tough game, but hopefully we can it done.
Other than basketball everything has been pretty normal. I’m really settling into my place, and I’ve got myself into a good routine. I definitely still miss home a lot, but I’ve been put here for a reason and I’m going to make the most out of it. Right now the worst thing about my situation is definitely the parking. Literally there is never anywhere to park. Luckily I live a little outside of the city, so my situation at my apartment is not terrible. However, I parked my car at a teammates house the other day, and I come back, well it was gone. In Pamplona they have different zones to park in, some are paying, some are free, and some are for residents of different buildings. Well, I parked in a blue zone during a weekend thinking it was free. However, I quickly found out that was not the case, costing me a nice 100 euro in the process.
My Quakers start practice Friday, and I’m really excited for my boys TC, Martin, Tobi, and Jake to start their senior year. I hoping they have really fun and successful season! It’s going to feel weird not being apart of that, but I’m happy for them and I’m really thankful for having great teammates like them and the rest of the guys. I’ll definitely be keeping up and praying for the team and Coach Palombo and Kimbrogh as they set out to do big things!!! I also wish the best for Coach Parke as well, as he starts his first season as a head coach at Averett.
If you would like to contact me, which I definitely encourage..You can Facebook or email at sanbornmt@guilford.edu I also have a new skype number where you can call me from your phone for free…336-429-5774.
God Bless!
