Before I begin, I just want to again thank my basketball coaches at TCU. Their contracts were not renewed for next season, and they will no longer be coaching at TCU. These guys really helped shape me as a player and as a person, and I owe a lot to them. They helped so many players during these past 6 years, and I want them to know that no matter what they’ll always be my coaches, and I love them. So coach Dougherty, Luster, and Callahan, thanks for everything guys and I can’t wait to see you when I come home!
Sorry it’s taken me so long to post another blog, but I’ve been really drained lately. I guess that’s how it goes at the end of the season. I’m just very mentally drained right now, and on top of that my laptop was broken, and it was the playoffs, yada, yada, yada. I know, I know, it sounds like a bunch of excuses, but unlike the old adage where excuses are compared to rectums, these don’t stink! They’re legit excuses Tobi!! It’s kind of hard to get things fixed in a place where only 1 out of every 10 people you come in contact with don’t speak English. In Switzerland they speak French, Italian, and German, and here in Fribourg, they speak French. Before I came out here, the only French words I knew were, “Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir”. So needless to say, my French is very limited.
I just wanna return to my last post and say that I HAVE NO PROBLEM GOING TO PRACTICE!! It’s just the practicing all day that I have a problem with. But I’ve been lucky this year, and my coaches are really cool, and understand the importance of getting rest. Anyway, it’s play-off time here in Switzerland and many other places around Europe as well. We made quick work of the Geneva Devils in our quarterfinal series as we swept them 3-0, and now we have to wait 10 LOOOOOONG days till the semifinals start. Which is great, because now I have more time lay awake at night in my bed and do everything but get a good night’s sleep! Oh well, I haven’t counted the square tiles on my wall in a while anyway, so go figure…This is also the time of year where guys are hearing from their agents about teams and plans for next year. There are two types of guys when it comes to stuff like this, the high maintenence and low maintenance guys. High maintenance guys email, call, or in my case instant message, their agents every day, or every other day to see how hard the agent is actually working. We, wanna, I mean THEY, wanna know stuff like, “How many teams are interested in them for next year?” What countries are the teams in?”, and last but certainly not least, “How much money we talking”? Agents usually know what type of guys they have, and they deal accordingly. With high maintenance guys, I assume many agents have a standard answer to all of those questions, like… “Well, you know everybody loves your game”, or “Hey, the way you’re playin, you’re gonna get BIG money next year!!” They give their high maintenance guys answers like these to keep the calls down from everyday to maybe once a week! But low maintenance guys maybe call they’re agent once during the season, if at all. When agents have low maintenance guys, they usually call or email them once a month to make sure everything is going smoothly with the team. Usually older players are the low maintenance guys who’ve been around the block and understand how the game works. And the younger guys are the high maintenance guys, always buggin their agents.
As the year is winding down, I find myself reflecting on the season and my time in Switzerland. It’s so crazy because I have about a month left, and even though several times this season I was thisclose to jumping out of the window of my apt due to sheer boredom, and the fact that I felt time stopped 26 times this year… Ironically, now it feels like the season flew by, and seems like yesterday that I was just sittin here and saying to myself, “There’s no way I can make it here one month, let alone the rest of the season!” Wait… I think that was yesterday when I was actually said that…
