|
For the
second straight year, a group from Jordan Brand
will travel to Europe -- this time to Vilnius,
Lithuania -- for a two-day training camp with 40
of the top prospects in the world from March
4-9. Ten players will be selected as the
Most Valuable Players from the camp and they
will travel to the United States in April, along
with six players from other regions of the world
to compete in the second annual
International Game as part of the Jordan Brand Classic
on Saturday, April 18th at Madison Square Garden in New
York City. The following is a blog and daily photo
gallery from Kevin Foley, who will be along for the
trip.
Phoenix,
Arizona (March 3): So I am going
to start this year's blog by apologizing for
last year's. I never admitted it at the
time in the blog, but I was very sick during the
2008 trip. The night before I had left
Phoenix, my throat started to swell up and 15
hours on airplanes didn't help my cause. I
spent the three days in Lithuania as miserable
as I have ever been in my life. I could
not speak at all and I ended up on so much
medication that the camp was a little bit of a
blur. So to say the least, I am definitely
looking forward to my return visit to Vilnius
this year to spend more quality time in a very
beautiful city. We
will have a group of eight people traveling from
the United States for the camp. Our
coaches will be Chris Thomas of SPARQ,
legendary skill instructor Ganon "Two
Claps" Baker and Raphael Chillious, who
currently works for Nike but previously was one
of the top high school coaches in the
country. Chill is the only coach to ever
have three players go from high school right
into the NBA. That's impressive.
Speaking of impressive, Gentry Humphrey, the
International GM of Jordan Brand, will be
on-hand too and he is the former footwear
director who had a major influence on Jordan
sneakers over the last two decades. Mike
Hackman of Nike will oversee the basketball
portion of the trip and Ilona Wiley of Jordan
Brand is the group leader. And last but
not least ... my co-worker Marc Steigerwalt who
will also assist with the blog and photo
gallery. It should be a very entertaining
time.
I left
Phoenix at 9:30 am this morning (Tuesday, March
3rd). It was 87 degrees and blue
sky. I was told on our final conference
call on Monday that it was -7 degrees in Vilnius
with a high of 30 all week. That will be
quite a change. I even soaked up a spring
training baseball game on Sunday between the
Giants and Brewers in Arizona to make the most
of the weather before facing the chill. My
trip today will take me to Washington, DC, then
on to Frankfurt, Germany and finally to Vilnius
by about 1 pm on Wednesday. Definitely a
lot of time in an airplane seat. I will
touch base again when I get to
Germany!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just
when I thought that my seven-hour leg of the
trip to Germany couldn't be more daunting, I
took my seat on the airplane to see my neighbor
clutching to a "barf" bag and sweating
profusely before we even left the ground.
For the first 30 minutes of the flight, he kept
the bag ready and open -- and cautioned me that
I might have to surrender my coveted aisle seat
to him for the flight if he needed to be closer
to the restroom. Lucky for me he fell
asleep and later proclaimed that he was 100%
recovered. When we landed, he told me that he was
connecting on to India. Yikes. A
few observations on the day (since I basically
just sat in a chair all day):
- Favorite
Moment: Seeing a guy actually take a flask of
whiskey out from his jacket pocket on my Vilnius
flight and passing it around to his neighbors (aka
"new friends") mid-flight.
- Puzzler: How people
do not realize that they are the only ones with
their overhead reading lights on at 3 in the
morning. Seriously.
- Stunner: My
suitcase made both connections and arrived on
time.
- Pet Peeve: People who push to
de-plane out of turn. What makes Mr. Row
20 more important than Ms. Row 18?
As always,
feel free to drop
me an email if you have any comments,
questions or recommendations for site-seeing
here.
Stay
tuned!!!! |
