Monthly Archives: August 2010

Case in Brazil: One day later

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The Case Western Reserve men’s basketball team is in Brazil, and blogging about the experience as well.

A nine hour flight isn’t bad, right? No, not at all. The nice thing going into nine hours on an airplane, was that the flight was overnight. A time where we were supposed to be sleeping, we would be able to sleep on the plane. When we arrive in Brazil, we would have our night’s sleep and the day ahead of us. A pretty good plan, if it had worked out.

Upon our arrival in Washington, D.C. to catch our connecting flight to Sao Paulo, we charged through the airport to make it to the gate in time. We were cutting it close making it to the gate for our 10:30 p.m. connecting flight. Up on the board the time remained 10:30. There was a slight difference nobody noticed as we thought we were racing against the clock. The little a.m. at the end of 10:30. This was no typo. Due to undisclosed reasons, our flight had been canceled for the night. The 10:30 a.m. flight would get us to Brazil at 9:30 p.m. with a one-hour time change as we are traveling to the east. Day one of Brazil, down the drain.

Looking around, while the loss of the day was disappointing, everyone was still content. I mean, here we were, on our way to Brazil, anticipating the amazing experience that lays ahead. Everyone has taken the change of plans in stride. We were put up in a fairly luxurious hotel, given meals, and now, flying 3,000 feet above South America. And, apparently South America is much larger than I have ever realized, for we have six hours left to go until we arrive.

Oh well. That’s all part of the game. Plus, it is quite entertaining to see an entire group of guys, all well over 6 feet tall, squish into their plane seats, and today’s practice was slated!

Augie in China: Back in the air

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Our fourth flight of the trip brought us to the city of Xi’an in central China. The flight from Wuhan to here lasted only about an hour and a half. It seems like the flights are getting shorter and shorter. When we landed we were greeted by Mr. Chang (pronounced J-ong) our guide in Xi’an. Our first stop was lunch and then it was on to see the Terracotta warriors. The warriors were clay sculptures of an army that Emperor Qing (“Ch-in”) who reigned in about 200 B.C., had commissioned and buried along with his body so that he would have an army in the afterlife.
 
The site of the soldiers was massive. There were three different pits that we stopped at. The first was the pit where the first terracotta warrior was discovered by peasants who were digging for a well in 1974. What they happened to find was one of the greatest discoveries of this century. The other two pits that we saw were both discovered by archeologists when they began digging around the initial discovery site.
 
Terracotta warriors

The clay army was made up of infantry men, archers, horses, generals, captains and chariots. Much of the collection is either broken or undiscovered, but much of the army is exposed for this public to see. The warriors were made to be actual size, where as the horses and the chariots were scaled down to half of their true sizes. I thought that something very interesting was that not a single soldier was identical to another. Each warrior had its own face and given the massive scale of the army, that was an impressive undertaking. The terracotta warriors provided some once in a lifetime pictures because truly there is nothing else like them on this planet.
 
After seeing the warriors we went back to our hotel and then set off into downtown Xi’an on our own. We headed to the local market which was positioned right behind the bell and drum towers that have been at the center of Xi’an since the city was established. This market was one of the most lively and exciting and it sold goods that ranged from Rolex watches to squirrel on a stick.
 
Early night to rest for a game against Xi’an University tomorrow.
 
Kyle Nelson

D3 in Europe: Games over

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Chris McDevitt is part of a group of Division III players (and three Division II players) traveling to Europe as an All-Star team this month. His latest blog entry follows:

Days five and six were more relaxing as we did not travel and tour as much as usual. Day five we were still in Dusseldorf and had the chance to sleep in a bit. We walked around the city for a bit during the day to get lunch then got ready for our game at 8 that night. We played a tough opponent this night in Germany but our style of play forced them to do many things they were not comfortable doing.

Like most European teams, this team was very half-court oriented. We forced them to play a more up tempo game by pressing from the start. We won the game by around 20 and we played a very sound game as a team. After the game we grabbed a team meal and headed back to Dusseldorf for the night.

Day six we were on the move again back to Belgium. This time we made a pit stop in Holland on the way. We were able to stop at Philips Stadium which is the home of the Footbal Club PSV. We stopped in their team store and purchased some items to take home. After the stadium we toured through Holland for a few hours and ate lunch in the city.
Holland was similar to Brussels. Both cities were more advanced and much like a United States city.

On the way back to Belgium from our stop in Holland, we played our last game. We played Technico, a team from Belgium. Like the Previous game this team wanted nothing to do with trapping, but they did push the ball back at us while we pressed. The game was close for most of the game until we pulled away at the end. Ricky Hudson was much help as he went off for 30 points including two dunks and several threes. After playing five mostly competitive games we ended the week at 4-1 and started to play very well as a team as the trip went on.

Next time I check in we will be done a great day of tours in London and getting ready for our flight back to the states.

USA

Behrend in Brazil: Getting started

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The Penn State-Behrend men’s basketball team is Brazil, on an eight-day/seven-night tour of Brazil’s most historic cities including Guaruja, Sao Bento do Sapucai and Paraty. The team will compete in three contests against Brazilian teams and co-host two basketball clinics during their travels. Chris Saltzman blogs:

The plane ride was long roughly 9 hours, but all worth it. We had about an hour and half bus ride from the airport to our hotel in Guaruja, Brazil. Guaruja is right on the beach and you can see the ocean from our hotel. We rode through the city of Sao Paulo, which was extremely eye opening. There was massive amount of poverty, which really makes you think about how good we have it back in the states.

We had practice at a community sports complex and there were little kids in awe when they saw us walk in. Our tour guide said it is not every day they get to see Americans and it is a big deal when they do. They were making our old assistant coach say words in Portuguese which were apparently bad words and they loved it. They were watching us practice as if they have never seen basketball before. They were asking for our autographs which felt pretty abnormal but it made the kids happy.

We went to a place called Hurrascaria Chapao for dinner. They were bringing around all different kinds of meat, slicing it right at the table. When the servers brought it to your table you had to use prongs to catch it as they sliced everything and anything you could have imagined. I must say that if you haven’t tried some chicken heart before you should probably get on it asap.

Brazilian meat

Next up – Surfing lessons at a local beach. Looking forward to seeing who can actually stay on the board.

Augie in China: Tourism and industry

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

After a day fully devoted to basketball, today was a change of pace and was focused on tourism and learning. Our day began at nine o’clock in the morning and we headed to an ecological garden in a township on the outskirts of Wuhan. The ecological garden was a government-funded group that would bring in local farmers, free of charge, and teach them how and what to grow in the region to be successful and profitable. We wandered the grounds briefly before getting back on the bus to head to a crane factory in town.

The crane factory was one that built the massive cranes that are used to construct very tall buildings. The most noticeable thing was how bad the working environment was and the limited protection that the workers had while operating heavy machinery. The money that these employees got paid was not nearly enough to compensate for the risk they were taking. I believe their payments came to about 300 United States dollars a month.
 
After the crane factory we walked around the town a bit then headed to the tea and rice fields. Here we saw the large plots of land where they would grow and sell their products. Dr. Norm Moline, the Augustana geography professor who has been so instrumental in making this trip great, and our local guide spent some time explaining how these products worked best for this land and environment.

Tea fields

We had three more stops on our trip for the day. The first was to the government building of the township. Here we spent some time listening to one of the town officials speak about the future of the township and how it was expanding.

The next two stops were factories that were complete 180 degree turns from what he had been seeing. They were in a “High Tech Economic Zone”

The first was a company that built laser machines that served many purposes. Some examples were machines that reduced wrinkles, could help with skin cancer and could remove tattoos. The company officials explained how they were already successful in Europe, but were seeking to gain FDA approval so they could begin sales in the United States. One of the employees demonstrated the use of the machine on assistant coach Larry Schulte, but everyone was rather skeptical if it actually had any effect. Finally, the last stop on our non-stop tour was a factory that produced goods ranging from popsicles to baby formula. We were taken inside of their warehouse and watched the assembly line workers package and make these good that were shipped to all corners of China.
 
Overall, it was a very informative day and a good learning experience to see how business operated in a foreign nation.
 
Off to Xi’an in the morning!
 
— Kyle Nelson