WOU

Hola! After taking a few days to recover from the return trip, I would like to reflect on the experience of traveling with members of our basketball program to participate in the Friendship Tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

First of all, it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime trip for all of us! To have the opportunity to spend eight days in one of the biggest cities in the world and observe the Argentinean culture was both exciting and rewarding.

From a basketball perspective, although the competition was not GNAC-caliber, it allowed us to accomplish what I had hoped we would. We were able to experiment with the new offensive and defensive schemes we practiced prior to the trip. It also afforded some of our younger players the opportunity to get a lot of game experience, and the confidence level of each individual player heading into next year increased dramatically. After each of the competitions, our players were treated like rock stars by the fans and players from the opposing teams. It was neat to see how the girls responded to their instant fame and were so willing to share their time with the young Argentina basketball enthusiasts.

This leads me to what I feel was the most rewarding part of the trip. To see how the players conducted themselves in the multitude of situations we were involved with made me extremely proud to be their coach. Wherever we went, I was given so many compliments about how the girls acted, how they responded to authority, how they were so respectful and mannerly, and just generally how they treated the people they came in contact with. As parents, friends of the families, or supporters of our program, you would have been equally proud of how each of these young ladies conducted themselves as individuals, as representatives of Western Oregon University (and NNU), and as Americans!

On behalf of all of the girls, I would like to personally thank each of you who helped make it possible for us to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Muchas gracias, amigos!