1st Day

Ok so just a little info on what exactly it is I am doing here in China. A friend of mine, David Archer, who plays a big part in the Atlanta area professional basketball scene, asked me to be the head coach of the Baseline Warriors, a tour team that he has taken to China for the past few years. David has done a lot with the Baseline Warriors, an organization that he runs, which competes in the WBA, a minor league in the southeast.

The team that Mr. Archer, Robert Wang of China, and I put together will be playing exhibition games all over China against teams from the Chinese Basketball Association (the top professional league in China) in hopes that the players we’ve filled our roster with will be offered contracts to play professionally in China.

After months of work putting the team together, getting Visa’s processed, getting Visa’s denied and then processed again (long story), and working vigorously with Robert Wang and David Archer on the roster, it is good to finally be in China. All of the players met in Atlanta for the training camp that we had prior to taking off for the Far East.

After camp, we set off for the longest few days of travel I’ve ever been on. Atlanta, Georgia. Los, Angeles, California. Seoul, South Korea. Nanjing, China. And for good measure, a two-hour bus ride to Yixing, China. Robert Wang, who is an agent in China, his boss Mr. Gao, aka “Boss Man”, and Robert’s wife were all waiting for us at the airport in Nanjing. After working with Robert for a few months over e-mail and Skype, I was almost nervous to finally meet him face to face. All was good and Robert introduced me to Boss Man, and his wife, Catherine.

After exchanging some USD to Chinese Yuan at the airport, we were all set to head to Nanjing. Upon arrival, we set down for dinner. I opted to sit at the table with the Chinese contingency that met us at the Yixing Electric Power Hotel. Not sure what the name is all about but it’s a nice little hotel. I was not sure what to except with the food, but it was actually pretty good. I stuck with the fried rice, chicken of some sort, and passed on pretty much everything else. As I sat there, not understanding a thing that was being said, I tried not to embarrass myself with the chops sticks. Apparently I didn’t do a good job. I had an unsolicited fork and knife delivered to me about three minutes into dinner. Boss Man and his posse, which consisted of members of the local sports committee, kept “cheersing” there glasses together every two seconds. I wasn’t ready for that but I went along with it nonetheless.

Once dinner was over, some of the players and myself took a walk to the downtown part Yixing. It was about a 15-minute walk, which took about an hour. Walking the streets was a riot. Horns. A lot of unnecessary honking of the horn. I was warned about the driving before I came over here, but it’s hard to even explain it. Cars, motorcycles, scooters, tricycles, and bicycles just weaving in and out of traffic, dodging pedestrians and honking the entire time. On the streets people were just starring at us everywhere we went, flocks of people would just walk up to us and stare. It was pretty amusing. The downtown area was pretty cool, with a big river flowing through the town, and stores everywhere. The funniest thing of the whole night was seeing the little kids. From about age 4 and under, all the kids pants had splits in the them around their butts. Literally every kid around that age, and his or her butt just hanging out of their pants! I wish I would have captured a good picture of it, but I definitely will before the trip is over. After we had some good laughs about that, we strolled back towards the hotel.

Our first game is tomorrow. Until then…