Well, I got my first exposure to the world of International Basketball last weekend. After several years off, I took the Schutz Girls' Basketball team to Muscat, Oman, for a 3 day tournament. This was the first time in 3 years that the girls had fielded a team and many of them hadn't played basketball outside of PE class. However, they worked hard and put forth a good effort in practices.
Days 1 & 2 of the tournament were round robin between the 6 schools that attended. They were: American British Academy from Muscat (the tournament hosts), The American International School of Muscat, American International School of Abu Dhabi, Al Nahda National School from Abu Dhabi, Ammerican Community School of Amman, Jordan, and of course Schutz American School. Day 3 of the tournament was an elimination day to place all teams first through sixth. Unfortunately, neither Schutz team won a game in the round robin portion. The boys team won their final game to finish in 5th place while the girls lost both games again and finished in 6th place. However, they played hard and despite being blown out in all of their games, they never once quit! I was so proud of their effort. In fact, they played their best basketball on the final day - as it should be! On the first night, one of the girls won the 3-point shooting skills contest...yay Shereen! At the end of tournament banquet, his girls were rewarded by their effort with the Sportsmanship Award Trophy! Another proud accomplishment. In fact, they received 6 out of the 12 votes (each coach and each team or captain vote) and actually received 6 out of 10 votes because we didn't vote for ourselves...something these girls were proud of and excited about.
Overall, I had a good time in Oman, though he didn't get to do much sightseeing. I was able to spend time with our friends Ty (we met him when he brought the Oman team to the JV Games tournament the weekend before) and his wife and son one afternoon for an hour or so and visit their house. I was also able to go by the Grand Mosque built by the Sultan of Oman. It's pretty impressive and very cool to view at night. I was completely exhausted coming home - not feeling well when I left, followed by 18-hour days of basketball, and then a day long trip home. I'm finally almost caught up on rest. Who knows what next year will bring as far as a team goes, but these girls can continue to improve and hopefully win a game next year. It's hard when some of these teams play 30+ games in a season and scrimmage against other local teams or travel to multiple tournaments. They play more like a traditional American basketball season, but our school had 4 events/activities practicing at one time and when you only have 110 students to make these teams, the same kids tend to participate in all of the activities. Not to make an excuse, but that's just how it is at a small school. Either way, I enjoyed my time returning to coaching and was quite touched when some of the girls came up and thanked me in person for coaching them this year. These are the type of students we get to teach and it makes things so worth it!
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