Adidas Weekend

So this last week we have been blessed to have a visitor from Adidas come to join us at PJB. I do not know if I updated everyone about it, but PJB has just signed with The Adidas Fund and we have received funding for a new basketball court and a whole lot of shoes and basketball jerseys and gear. Last Monday an employee of Adidas, not one that works for the fund, but just a basketball loving employee that heard about the project decided to join us in Goma to check out PJB.

Robert, the “Adidas ambassador”, came at a very interesting time here in Goma. As many people know the DRC is going through a historic election period. Along with the busy schedule we had planned for Rob, he was also here during the last week of campaigns. The town of Goma was hoping as each of the many candidates for cabinet worked to get their last strategies to play out to win the hearts of the people. The atmosphere is very hard to explain, but we’ll see how it all turns out.

So after a busy week of trainings, meetings with board members and partners, and some touring of the town we filled Rob’s weekend in Goma with Elite games. On Saturday we played our third match against the Gomabulls. The game started at 10 AM, which as you have probably caught on means that the tip was around 10:45AM. If you look through past blogs you can see that the matches between us and the Gomabulls are usually fast and tough fought games This game was exactly the same. The bulls led most of the game, but in the end we ended up winning by one point, giving us a 3-0 record against the Gomabulls for the pre-season so far.

After the Boys Elite match, we had a girls match against another basketball initiative team called TBC. PJB girls are actually very tall and pretty good players, and the other team just could not match our size. We have four girls that are about at 6 feet tall. The match was never close and we ended up winning by about 50 points. It is great to watch the girls play though because they play with great enthusiasm and just have a lot of fun as a team. It reminds me of when we were in High School playing with my brother and best friends.

If two games on Saturday wasn’t enough for Rob, we scheduled a rematch against Virunga, the team we beat by 40 last week, for Sunday morning at 8. So, as always bright and early we began another game against Virunga. This weekend wasn’t as good as the last game we played though. Our team was slow and sluggish, I don’t know if it was because we played the day before, or the heat, or if the other team had a burst of energy, but they ran circles around us. We ended up losing by about 15 points, and I would estimate that we had more turnovers than points. It was a very frustrating match for me because I was playing and not coaching, so I tried to keep my mouth shut for substitutions and timeout situations. The head coach for PJB on Sunday though did an extremely poor job of coaching. I think with proper coaching, even though we played terribly we still could have beaten Virunga because they just aren’t that great a team. Now I am in a Dilemma like Nelly and Kelly because I think I might just want to coach instead of player/coach because I want to win. I am starting to develop a competitive side, and after Sunday, I don’t want to lose ever again!

So it was a busy, but very fun weekend, and I hope that Rob got a good taste of PJB’s competitiveness and passion for basketball. You know, it is a great testament to the hard work that everyone in the organization puts in when you have three games in a weekend and the stands are packed for each one, especially during the election time that we are in right now. It was great to see kids and adults come to the court to have fun and forget for just a second about the stress and madness of the elections.

Stay Tuned!