Wikipedia

I'm not sure what the exact standards of "big timing" are, but having your own Wikipedia article is pretty cool (No matter what language it's in...). http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_Gaynell_Montagnino

Almost any time I think about Wikipedia though, I'm reminded of the words of Michael Scott (from the show The Office, one of my few faves) on the subject: "Wikipedia is the best thing ever... Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you KNOW you are getting the best possible information." Love it. I know I didn't do it justice, so here's my source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFBDn5PiL00

Life's so crazy. I'm humbled every time something like this comes up. I'm not sure how God took this small, shy kid from Christian Life Academy who loved to play sports and turned that kid into a decently successful professional athlete, but He did. I mean, I know it happens because where else do pro athletes come from, but why me? I have to wonder sometimes, but I know that I'm also here because I've worked very hard to have the chance to do this over the past decade-plus. It's a daily battle to find that balance between having some "swagger" on the court and staying humble. It's something that we will probably never cease to search for.

A battle??? or just rugby?

We just played against one of those teams that it doesn't really matter how good you are at basketball, it's more about how tough you are (physically and mentally). The game got a bit rough at times, but this team is known for how chaotic, and oftentimes dirty, they play. They will get a few cheap shots in to try and bait you into a retaliation, and they will fake and flop on some plays to get some fouls called, all aimed at throwing you off your game and trying to get an advantage by compensating for what they seem to lack in talent. It was the first time that I've experienced a coach getting two technical fouls called to be thrown out of a game at the professional level, and luckily I was at the free throw line when that happened. If I hadn't gone 6 for 6 from the free throw line (4 of those thanks to the coach's "T's") I, unfortunately, would not have scored. I would have joined my other two American guards in that situation though, and only one of them was out sick. It was just a difficult game for the "little people"--we didn't get many shots off, but that opened up things for our post players, who really stepped up for us. This game set a record for consecutive victories at 14, and the next two teams below us already have 3 losses, so clinching the top seed for the play-offs should be all ours if we keep rolling.

I'll take this time to explain a little bit about what's going on. Some might find this boring, but I know that some are curious to how the European leagues function. Here ya go either way:

We are now taking a break from the Italian League as we head into the next round of what is called the "Italian Cup". Pretty much every country has their own "Cup" championship that is secondary the the end-of-the-season-play-offs championship. I thought it was silly, but the winner has a good chance of being apart of the Euroleague the next season, so I guess understand it's real motive now. We will play away and then at home against Parma, and the point differential will decide who moves on to the final four.

On the other hand, the next week will be the next round for Euroleague. A whole different ball game. We are matched up with a very good Turkish team that will be extremely difficult for us to beat. It will be a best-of a 3-game series, and since they are the higher-seeded team, we will play in Istanbul first, then at home, and the if-necessary game would be back in Istanbul. Unlike the Italian league, we are NOT the favorites, so that means we get to play like we have nothing to lose. I got no problem being the underdog :)

(Uncle Tommy left for Rome today, but this is a picture taken after our win against the Lithuanian team. That's my buddy Salvatore, or as we call him, Totes, who is now a buddy of Uncle Tommy's too!)

Mountains and Valleys

Basketball, which in so many ways is a microcosm of life, has its ups and downs. The downs in sports are most commonly referred to as "slumps". They happen. I've had a couple of them this season. For me, they are mostly shooting slumps, but sometimes they can just be mental fatigue when you are in a place that just doesn't have the passion or desire to go to practice or play with your absolute best effort that day. To be honest, I don't feel like writing when I'm currently in a "slump". I don't feel like it AND I know that that's not fun and interesting to read about. But this blog is about my experiences over here, and without publicly throwing out names and specific frustrations that I'm having, I'll just keep it at that I was frustrated with myself for not doing what I needed to with (what I considered) a small amount opportunities. I can never get mad and frustrated with a coach for not playing me more or at teammates for not passing the ball or something (Thanks for Coach Dallimore for reminding me that!). I can only control my attitude and how hard I work, and when those two things are where they need to be, most of the time everything falls into place.

Thankfully, my "slump" only lasted a couple of games, and the two games that my Uncle Tommy has been here to see have been good wins and good games for me! We have one more home game to play while he's here, and all has gone really well so far. I've showed him all around the city, and he's loved every bit of it. He's a great tourist buddy as well as a fine guest (he naps when I nap and even eats when I eat--pregame meals and all!). Tomorrow we are going on a little road trip to somewhere north of here because our coach actually gave us the day off tomorrow for playing well! Awesome. We'll see if we can extend the list of things Uncle Tommy has never eaten before in his life before this trip. It's pretty long already--including octopus, gnocchi, pasta with lobster, prosciutto and mozarella, red pesto pasta, tripe, and several other things that maybe share the same name, but are NOT the same as the American version (i.e. Tiramisu, italian sausage, risotto, eggplant lasagna, etc.)

Back down to Earth...

We won our first game back from the break without one of our starting guards, on the road, against the number 6 team in our league by 15 points. Not bad. It set a club record for consecutive victories at 12 to send us on the road to play against one of the top 4 teams in all of Euroleague. We upset them when they came here, but they were still supposed to blow us out by 30 points. And what did they do??? They blew us out by about 30 points. It may have been 28 because we had a lay-up at the buzzer. We tied it up at 31-31 late in the first half, but we never had control of the game. As a team, we were upset directly after the game obviously because that's just plain embarrassing with the "junior high" performance we put out there (in fact, at dinner when the hotel restaurant served some of our team and staff wine, we had to ask each other, "should 8th graders really be drinking wine???"). Our team is very competitive, but I am glad that we don't take things too seriously. We are able to laugh at ourselves for dumb things that happened in the game, and we do our best to fix them for next time. Playing with people like that just help the overall morale, and keeps people from getting "burned out" too quickly.

If games like these keep us grounded for our Italian league games, then some positive can come from the blow-out. Getting spanked by the Russian champs several weeks ago and now the Spanish league champs definitely keeps us from getting the big head! On another note, my uncle Tommy arrives Saturday to catch 3 straight home games and to visit Italy for the first time, so we are excited about that!

back to work!

Nothing much to report. We feel as though we are back to doing pre-season exercises at times, which consist of more running and agilities with little thought of how heavy our legs feel or how tired we are. With reason, however, because this will be our only chance to get back into shape before we start playing every three or four days, but two-a-days will just wear you out!

On another note, I've underestimated the mental transition that takes place every time we go from one "home" to the other. I almost felt like an actress, where I wasn't sure which one was the reality (as if one of them isn't...). It just takes a completely different mindset for each place. Ignoring how much jet lag is getting to us, and how sleep deprived the Americans were today at both practices, for one thing, on one side of the ocean we are all staying at our parents homes. I for one take full advantage of how spoiled I get when I'm home (love you mom!) and I love getting to see both sides of the family for Christmas, and then words can't describe how great it is having Morgan and Jodi around everyday to do stuff with (even though Jodi sleeps too late in the day and Morgan wakes up too early...). Then on the other side of the ocean, we are all living in apartments by ourselves, foreign country with a language barrier to deal with everywhere, we are in the same locker room and on the same court almost every day, twice a day with the same people. When you go hang out, it's with people you are in forced contact with. Not that we don't like each other or anything, but when you see each other so much, we don't always choose to go do other things with those same people. There are local friends you meet, which I have been very fortunate to find a few good ones (that speak great english too!), but we don't have the background that friends back home have. However, it is a fantastic cultural experience to go through, and I do cherish it.

But you know what? For most of us, even if you look at all these differences and see only negatives, which I thankfully DO NOT, and that same person is making a decent living, if they are just PLAYING well, it pretty much erases all of those supposed down points. It's just amazing how heavily our morale self-esteems are affected by that. On the other hand, even though life is great, and you are just in a slump, you have blinders on and the only thing you see in front of you instead is that life stinks. I think this pushes us to be our best on a daily basis, so I appreciate this characteristic in my teammates.