BASKETBALL TRAVELS . . .

One of the neat things that I get to do here is to travel with the boys' basketball teams. It is very different than when I was coaching in Texas for all of those years.

First, we basically take five teams on the trip: 7th, 8th, 9th, JV and Varsity (although it is broken down by ages, not grades here). We put all these boys on the SAME bus with two coaches and myself. The last travel was an overnight trip to Ventspils and Kandava. I would have never taken these different age groups on the same bus but they really don't think anything of it over here.

When I was coaching, I often would invite a Special Education student to serve as a manager, helper, etc. I often would assign an older, responsible player to be in charge of the Special Education student when we were on the road. He was to make sure the other student was on time, knew where we were leaving from, what time we would eat, etc. Now, I'm the one that feels like he's a Special Education student on these trips. I have to have one of the players that speak English to translate what the coach says in regards to schedules, meetings, etc. The coaches speak very, very little English, so I have to rely on someone else to get me where I'm supposed to be. The coaches surely don't have time to babysit me with their other responsibilities.

The coaching here is good but most of the coaches are not teachers in the school system. There are no organized athletics in the schools. They have a physical education program but all competitive athletics are only offered by the Sporta Skola, which is completely separate from the academic schools. They also have Music Skola and Makslas Skola (art) which offers instruction in the fine arts.

So, we take a two day trip to the other side of Latvia for the basketball games. We traveled four hours, played five games, got back on the bus, and traveled two more hours to Kandava.

When we arrived in Kandava, I found my dream gym. This Sports Halle had a small cafe to feed the teams and an attached hotel. I could literally hear the horn in the gym from my hotel room. From the door of my room it was exactly 21 steps to a seat in the bleachers. Now that is a nice set-up...nice bleachers, nice hotel (think Motel 6) and some good basic Latvian food in the kafenica. I could have stayed there for days: eating, sleeping and watching basketball.

The kids all took care of themselves and each other. We had no problems unless you consider the 7th grade boys that brought hair clippers and shaved each other's heads. Other than that, all was good.

I never missed the bus, never made too big of a fool of myself in trying to speak Latvian and never once told the Latvian coaches how they should coach. It was a great trip that I truly enjoyed. The Latvian kids are well behaved and accept me pretty much as just an old, weird guy hanging around the gym ... which is exactly what I am.