Back in the USA
After completing a very productive senior team trainining camp Chawn and I flew back to the U.S. this past week. We are in New York City right now staying with Steve Mayes, a former player of mine. We were able to watch my daughter, Tori, play college softball on Saturday and we hope to again this week.
Back to our training camp. We finished a 4 week camp. We actually had 32 practices, 12 weight lifting sessions, and 3 scrimmages. This was what I would call a development camp. Our morning sessions were primarily for player development and our evening sessions were used to build our team system. We had 23 report to camp. We will be inviting 16 of those players back for our camp in April preparing for the SABA Regional Qualifying Tournament. I feel like we made some real strides but still have a long way to go to move to a higher level of competitiveness than the team has been at in the past. We are establishing our uptemp style of offense and our hard nosed half court defense. I am also really enjoying gettting to know the players on a personal level. I have to work through some barriers that the culture creates in order to have a closer relationship with them.
After we leave New York City we will spend a couple of days in Ohio with my Father & Mother-in-law.Then we head to Florida to spend time with my Dad, Vonnie, and my brother, Dean. I am taking my Dad to the Tampa Bay Rays opening day. While in Florida I will also visit the IMG Academy in Bradenton to meet up with Coach Kenny Natt (former Indian national team coach), Satnam Singh (current player), and the other Indian student athletes that are at the Academy. From there we head to Atlanta for the Final Four and Basketball Coaches Convention. When I was a college coach in the states I used to take my sons every year. I really look forward to seeing so many of my friends in the coaching fraternity. My brother is joining me there as well.
I'll end up spending a day in Tennessee with Paul Furey, the men's soccer coach at Lee University, and one of my best friends. I will head back to Ohio from there and then I return to India. It is a lot of travel but we will be able to see many of our family members and close friends. I will certainly enjoy my time in the states but my heart is in India these days. I will look forward to getting back to my assignment of growing basketball and making a difference. Salt & Light