Two Choices: Point the Finger and Do Nothing, Or Be the Change and Do Anything

Last week was a tough welcome back to Germany on the court.  We dropped our first game to USC-Heidelberg by not 1 or 2 points, but an unfortunate 20 point loss.  On top of this we lost our other American player, a shooting guard averaging around 10ppg.

On the surface, you would think oh yikes this team is going to have a turbulent second half of the season... and aren't people supposed to come back from Christmas break refreshed?  Well, in all honesty sometimes it takes a giant poop-bomb blowing up for people to finally rally together, and that's exactly what happened.

With our next game against 3rd ranked Wurzburg (who we only previously beat by 1 point) looming ahead of us at the start of the training week after our gigantic loss to Heidelberg we knew some things needed to change in a hurry and that it was time to stop blaming anyone or anything but ourselves.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in any aspect of life is to step up and accept that the only thing you can control is yourself, and that even when you think that life's problems are never your fault and that you are a victim of circumstance, your problems are really only a product of something within yourself.  Now I understand there are many ways to try and poke holes into this theory, like hey, what about general misfortune like cancer to an otherwise extremely healthy person or a fatal accident that could of been as incidental as a meteor striking your car on the I-5?  This is true.  Sometimes it really isn't your fault, and there's nothing you could of done... but, purely in my opinion and from experience, we are responsible for the vast majority of our problems.

Something I see fading more from younger generations (my own included) as I get more involved with people and youth in general, is that personal responsibility and accountability are no longer a priority.  It's too easy to put the blame outside of yourself.  I'm lucky to have people in my life who tell me to step up already and do something instead of whining about my problems or pointing the finger.

Jeanne demonstrating how it's not easy
to be a post. 

Anyway, the game against Wurzburg rolled around at 4:30pm on Sunday (German time).  Viernheim24, an organization within Viernheim that promotes our club, used this game for free promotion and handed out free entry tickets to the game all week.  This resulted in a few more fans than usual (yay!).  Apprehension simmered in the air as we warmed up... how were we going to do with the obstacles we had to overcome this week and were our new mindsets of self-accountability going to pay off?

We shake hands with the refs and the other team and the ball is thrown into the air... let's go!

The first quarter ends... we're down by 11.  Here we go again... nothing has paid off, and it's hard for me to play as ever with the other team packing the paint and checking me (like we're playing football or something) everywhere I go.  Why is no one else stepping up??  ...Oh yeah, that hold yourself accountable thing, c'mon Alysa.

Jules giving a Wurzburg player a taste of her
own medicine.

With my frustrations boiling beneath my exterior, I release going into the second quarter that of course this is going to be a hard game...I already knew that... now what am I going to do about it and how can I motivate others around me to do something about it too?

With a clearer head and restored determination, we battle through the 2nd quarter and end within single digits of the other team (I forget exactly the score, but we were still down at the half... I think by 8).

Sid going up for a shot... before or after
throwing up?

Adversity is thrown at us yet again in the third quarter when our point guard (aka Sid, the best player) suddenly gets very sick and has to sprint off to the bathroom to throw up.  We scratch and claw without her, working together as a team, and pull ahead by a few points to end the third.

Going into the fourth, Sid toughs it out and makes it back onto the court, giving us all a reason why we should have no excuses.  The fourth quarter is just as unrelenting as the first three, but multiple players step up and make big plays - mainly on defense, where true hustle and heart is shown.  Final score: 68 - 59 ... TSV Viernheim wins!

Putting up some crazy shot.

Sid's under 19 (U19) team - that she coaches - watching to see if coach knows what she's talking about.

Stay tuned... next game is against Rhein-Main this Sunday!

Hey Loyal Readers - I'm baaacckkkk!! First Stop - France.

Hello awesome readers.  If you wondered where I disappeared to for the past month or so - we got to go home back to 'Murica for Christmas break.  It was wonderful to see friends and family, but not so wonderful were the flights to and from.  The first was a 20 hour journey filled with intermittent sleep and crying babies... sounds terrible but was nothing compared to the trip back.  My day started at 3pm Alaska time, leaving Kodiak on an hour delayed flight and arriving in Anchorage around 4:30pm.  After getting off the plane I was unable to locate my bag on the shortest leg of my trip...after a slight panic an annoyed service agent went to the back of the luggage area and dug it out for me (no idea what it was doing back there).


My next flight left at 11:20pm for San Francisco, so I hung out for a few hours in Anchorage with friends and ate some delicious Pita Pit (which they don't have in either Kodiak or Europe).  On the next plane (oh and I should mention here I'd been getting over a cold the past few days), I couldn't fully sleep but felt comatose thanks to the Z-Quil I took in the Anchorage airport.  Then at 3am, some nasty nausea woke me out of my comatose state and sent me to hang out in the oh so comfy airplane lavatory for 20 minutes of sweating out my ears...seriously...it was coming out of my ears.  Is this too much info?  Okay we'll skip ahead and fast forward to San Francisco where I proceeded to have an 8 hour lay over and slept like a homeless person on the floor for 2 of those hours only to awake to a crowd of people around me who were apparently boarding a plane in the - what I thought - was abandoned area of the terminal.

Fast forward again 6 hours and lets begin Satan's flight to Frankfurt from San Fran...a wonderful 11 hour direct trek.  Needless to say, by the time we landed, my fever was through the roof and I felt like my conscious self was floating outside of my body.  The good news is I was recovered by my birthday and was surprised with a trip to Strasbourg, France by my awesome roommate/teammate Sid!

The photo to the left is my reaction to finding out she wasn't driving me off a cliff and instead to a different country!

Town square with a giant Christmas tree.. apparently Strasbourg are like the neighbors who never take the Christmas lights down.

Our first stop was the Strasbourg Cathedral, an enormous 466 feet tall (which these days, I know, doesn't seem like a lot) was the tallest building in the world between 1647 and 1874.  Inside the cathedral is an impressive 18 meter tall astronomical clock (see picture below).  Legend has it that the creator of this clock had his eyes gouged out afterward to prevent him from recreating it. 

Neat window... check out how warped it is.  The glass resembled bottoms of glass bottles - hey, maybe they were!

Our next stop was a tasty sushi lunch and then on to Le Petite France, the most well preserved Medieval town in Europe set on a series of locks and canals.  For anyone traveling this way, I definitely recommend a stop here.  It's worth it! (And French sushi isn't so bad either, wiiiii wiiiiiiiiii)