Category Archives: Augustana

Augustana: Working for this all summer

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TamblingThe Augustana basketball teams are heading to Brazil this week and will be blogging on the trip. Brandon Motzel is blogging for the men’s team and you can catch their blog posts on the D3hoops.com Daily Dose. Chaney Tambling is blogging for the women’s team.

Excited does not even begin to describe what our team is feeling. Not only have we been looking forward to this all summer, but also since the coaches started recruiting us.

I remember the first time I met Coach G. The first thing he showed me was all of Augustana’s championship rings, followed by pictures and stories from their previous international trips to Europe, Ireland, and Asia. When he mentioned that we would be going to Rio de Janeiro during our four years, I could not wait. I know the upperclassmen have been waiting even longer than I have, and when we talked about it during this last weekend of practices, I heard the phrase, “I can’t believe it’s finally here,” many times.

These were our last two days to get ready, but we have been in preparation for Brazil since early spring.

It began with team skill workouts and “Brazil-bond Thursdays” with our strength coach, Darren Phelps. We also had three informative seminars with Augustana professor Mariano Magalhães. He gave us a basic introduction into Brazilian culture, what to expect, and a short lesson in useful Portuguese phrases to learn. Maybe the best part of the sessions was when we learned how to Samba, a skill that will be put to good use in Brazil. I was ready to jump on the plane for the 11 hour flight to Brazil after all that, but we still had all summer to wait.

We finally arrived back on campus July 18 to begin the first of our 10 days of summer practice. The first night back, we played in the final game of the PepsiCo Summer league, followed by a practice at the Carver Center. It felt like we were playing in a sauna it was so hot and humid on the court. Everyone was slipping and falling all over the place, but despite the conditions, we were all happy to be playing and practicing as a team again. We went through all our offensive sets for Brazil, and spent a lot of time working on our defense and communication, just a few keys to our team.

It stayed hot for most of the days we were on campus, so it was a huge benefit to get to stay in the Parkander Apartments with the AC on. No one wanted to move after two-a-days, so in my apartment we played cards and talked about the upcoming trip for hours. This was a lot of fun, but none of us minded when we had to stop playing to head over to one of the coaches’ houses for a cookout once each weekend. Coach G had us over for the first weekend, and while we were there he showed us some Travel Channel shows on the food in Brazil. Honestly, some of the dishes on the show, like pork with chicken blood as a sauce, had us feeling a little queasy and apprehensive, but the team’s consensus was to at least try a little bit of everything.

This decision was also reinforced by several alumni that stopped by over the three weekends. Drew and Brett Wessels were two that spoke to us. They offered advice on everything from their trips abroad to life after college in the real world. We all listened attentively soaking up as much information as we could because we knew all of these guys have been very successful both on and off the court. Kyle Nelson, Bryant Voiles, and Dain Swetalla also visited; these guys have all been playing professionally since graduating from Augustana. They were able to give advice on international basketball, which was great for us because there are several major rule differences. These three also scrimmaged with the team, which really reinforced the sense of family and camaraderie between the Augustana basketball family, both current and former.

I didn’t think I could be any more excited for the trip, but after experiencing that, I knew the trip would also bring our already close-knit team even closer together.

So, after all this preparation, IT’S FINALLY HERE! We depart for São Paulo Brazil, on Monday night from O’Hare Airport where we will begin the trip of a lifetime!

Heading to Brazil!

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TamblingThe Augustana basketball teams are heading to Brazil this week and will be blogging on the trip. Chaney Tambling is blogging for the women’s team and you can catch their blog posts on the D3hoops.com Daily Dose.

The Augustana women’s basketball team is gearing up for a great trip to Brazil!

After two weekends of intense practices we are now back in our respective hometowns to pack and prepare for the long flight ahead. Words can’t describe how much excitement and anticipation we have going into the trip. We are so excited to be able to play three games, participate in some community service activities and basketball clinics, and enjoy the culture while we are in Rio.

Can’t wait to get there!

Augie in China: Home again

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates took a summer trip to China. He blogged regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Augustana players and coaches in Japan

Whoa, what a trip! From Aug. 3-18, our Augie basketball team has traveled over 17,200 miles, visited eight cities, taken seven flights, rode one train, played five games, went through three of the world’s five largest airports (Chicago O’Hare, Beijing Capitol Airport and Tokyo Narita Airport), and toured many sites across East Asia. It was the kind of trip that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I’m certain that everyone else feels the same. From bartering in the markets of Hong Kong to climbing the Great Wall, we experienced so many things and saw plenty of differences between our home in America and East Asia that made us both miss home as well as view Asia in a completely new light.

From a basketball standpoint, this trip showed us how much Chinese people really embrace basketball. We know that basketball is still a growing sport in East Asia, but every person we came across was excited to see that we were a basketball team from the United States. Also, the fans at every game were incredibly great to us and cheered for our play just as much as they did for the home team. We were treated as special guests and the people made us feel very welcome because they saw how happy we were to be in their country.

At this point of the trip (roughly over South Dakota traveling at 696mph) we are all ready to get home. It has been a great trip and we have all learned a lot about ourselves both athletically and culturally, but we are anxiously awaiting seeing family and friends again before school starts on Monday.

I’d like to thanks everyone who read this blog for the duration of the trip, or even just once. I really enjoyed writing them and I hope you enjoyed reading them just as much. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible and I hope to see everyone at the Carver Center during the season!

– Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: One last stop

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates took a summer trip to China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Augustana players and coaches on the Great Wall

Our last day overseas. The most amazing trip of our lives is finally coming to a close. To close out the trip we had a forced layover in Japan, due to having a connecting flight to Chicago the next day. That allowed us a little bit of time for some sightseeing. We traveled into downtown Tokyo and made our first stop at Tokyo Tower. This is the largest free standing steel structure in the world. It had an observation deck to go up in. Immediately we could see why Tokyo was the most populated city in the world with about 37 million people. It was huge! The city stretched beyond what we could see from the tower and it was truly an impressive sight.
 
Next stop on the Tokyo-in-a-day tour was the Imperial Palace, located in the center of the city. This Palace is where the Emperor and his family resided. The current Emperor is part of a family that has been in the Imperial Palace for 125 generations. That is an incredible amount of time. Currently, however, the Emperor of Japan serves no purpose other than being a figure-head for the country. All political power has been removed from that position and resides elsewhere within the political system. The Palace was closed on this particular afternoon so we were not able to go inside, but we got a view of part of it from across the moat that surrounded the compound.
 
We made a brief stop at a Buddhist Temple (Asakusa) before heading to our meal. This meal was easily the best of the trip. Each table had its own little grill on it and there was a buffet of at least fifteen different kinds of raw meats that you could choose yourself and cook yourself. I’m pretty sure that everyone ate way more than they could handle, but it was good none the less.
 
At dinner, we had a special guest waiting for us. His name was Phil Hoffman and he was the Minister-Counselor of Public Affairs for the United States Embassy in Tokyo. He also happened to be an Augie grad (1974) and an ex-student for Dr. Moline. Phil spent about half an hour talking to the group about what he did overseas and how his Augie education has really helped him in his job that has taken him from Greece to India to Nepal and to Japan among other places. He was really an impressive and well-spoken man and his stories were truly one-of-a-kind because no where else could you experience what he had gone through.
 
Our flight to Chicago leaves in and hour and a half. One more blog coming when we land back home!
 
Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: Pick and roll comes in handy

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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.

Currently at a comfortable cruising altitude of 32,000 feet, I think back about what we saw on our last day in China. Our final day was dominated by a seven hour trip to the Great Wall. We boarded the bus and took the two hour drive from our hotel to the far outreaches of Beijing where the Mutainyu section of the Great Wall is. This part was built over 600 years ago during the Ming Dynasty.  Driving up we were able to catch glimpses of it on the tops of the mountain range.

Once there we prepared ourselves for the long climb up more than one thousand stairs to finally reach the wall. We figured this hike would be some good training for the upcoming 2 mile. The hike took a while, but once it was done it was definitely worth it. The Great Wall was a sight to see. It seemed to go on forever. Just walking around on it gave you a great sense of pride just for being up there. We were on the Wall for at least an hour and a half, snapping photos and just looking out onto the mountain range.

After spending time up there we took the cable cars down and got ready to eat our final Chinese meal as a team. By now we were pretty used to the food served at these places; baked fish, eggplant, cabbage, pineapple chicken, spicy beef and egg drop soup. However, that doesn’t mean that were not thinking about having some good American food once we get back home.

Our last stop was at two of the largest markets we saw during the whole trip. They were the Pearl Market and the Silk Market; both located in downtown Beijing. These markets we essentially like the department stores we are used to, as they were indoors and were either four or five stories tall. But we were still able to barter with the salespeople at these places. The Pearl market was most obviously known for its extensive pearl vendors and the Silk Market, you guessed it, had practically a whole floor dedicated to silk materials. The popular items continued to be watches, scrolls, and souvenirs, but bootlegged DVDs made their first appearance in a market this trip and were a popular purchase.

We have quite a bit of time to kill on this flight to Tokyo, Japan (about three hours), and I’m sitting next to Bryant Voiles. Here are his thoughts thus far about the trip:

Thus far China has been an incredible experience individually and as a team. Not only have we been able to bond as a team at some of the most influential places in Chinese history and one of the seven wonders of the world, but also places such as the markets, hotels, dinners and night life. For example, in Beijing the silk market had some very determined people wanting to sell their items. On more than one occasion, they would corner someone in their store and block them from exiting until they bought an item. Being the skilled basketball players we are we managed to effectively use the pick and roll on the salesman so that we were able to leave the store.  The person not being blocked in the store would walk up unknowingly behind the salesman and set a back screen, then the person being cornered would run the salesman right into the screen being set free of the trap and both people would then jog away as the relentless salesman yelled at us to come back. I entered this trip with an open perspective on the culture that I was about to embrace anticipating major differences. Looking back I realize that I have earned a greater appreciation for my own culture and even the little things in life that are sometimes taken for granted such as a toilet seat and clean water that can be drunk from the tap.  
Bryant Voiles ( Senior Co Captain)

Kyle Nelson