Inauguration...

This weekend we inaugurated our first new court to open in Goma. The court is named after Ms. Valerie Todenhofer, who was an employee and key to building our partnership with adidas to fund the court. The court is located in the center of town in the compound of a Catholic Church funded library and cultural center called maison des jeunes. It is in a prime location to serve the youth of Goma, as it is located at “college”, which is surrounded by the three biggest private schools in Goma.

An inauguration is a celebration of a new beginning. It is a ceremony to commence the upstart of something tangible and useful. I could not be more happy, excited, and overwhelmed, as I was this past weekend. It has always been a dream of mine to be able to one day build a basketball court in Goma. I could never have imagined that I would be inaugurating a basketball court in Africa that I put a lot of my own time, sweat and blood into at just the age of 23.

It’s hard to explain, in words, the feeling you get as you watch your dream come true. It is a feeling of pride, contentment, and incomprehensible joy. To some extent the feeling is one of relief because you know that all the hard work and focus you put into something amounted to success, but it is not all relieving. It is almost the sense of relief you may feel on January 1^st when you put everything from the year before behind you and you can let go of the stresses of what was before. In the same way though the feeling also paints a picture of a future that you can step in to with a new found wealth of knowledge, experience, and opportunity that will help you to thrive in the future.

Sitting at home on Sunday after the inauguration I felt like a veteran schoolteacher returning home from the last day of school. In that moment I felt content with my life and assured that I was worth something. You know how younger people always question their worth, but usually you can see the happier old people content with life even when all seems to be going wrong? I think this is because older people (lets just consider anything over 35 “older” to me) have experience, which has proven their worth to themselves, so they can be contented. This experience has been that type of experience for me. One that has been so great that there are very few things that could happen to shake my worth. I have incredible self worth, and I have one amazing basketball court to show for it, and two on the way!

That is how I felt when looking back on my weekend. It is now Tuesday and I still haven’t really yet come to terms with my feelings. I am not in a state of “my goal is finished now what do I do,” as some people slip in to, but I am even hungrier for more. I have a long life ahead of me and I am happy to have accomplished something I thought would not come until after my career even before I’ve really started my career, but I have many other dreams and aspirations. I know now how great it feels to accomplish those dreams though, and I will strive to continue that.

Anyway, let get to the actual inauguration. The definition, according to dictionary.com, of inaugurate is “to make a formal beginning of…” Many times a person will finish a job and just leave it at that. It so much better to “formally” celebrate and commence the use of that job. I had very little input on the planning of the inauguration because I am not familiar with the traditions of Congolese celebrations, so I was really just along for the ride on Saturday and did what I was told.

The ceremony began on Saturday at a Congolese 2 PM (for those of you who haven’t read my blog at all that means about 2:45 or 3 PM). This meant that me and the other coaches were of course at the court at 6 AM sharp (I don’t play that Congolese Time) to prepare everything for the ceremony. This included cleaning the court, setting up chairs (we are now looking for funding to hopefully build some stadium seating for the court), trying to find a way to shade the seating area from the hot sun, buying refreshments… and so on. We wanted to make the ceremony as professional as can be to show our supporters and the people of Goma that we truly are a professional organization.

The ceremony began at around 2:45 PM with the playing of the Congolese national anthem. I mean no disrespect, but the song resembled someone singing a gospel version of Lean on Me at midnight at a noraebang after one to many drinks. Not to dog on the Congolese national pride (I love the country) but I have to describe it how I hear it right? Anyway… after that came the speeches. I was very impressed because there were only two speeches, one by Dario the founder and director of PJB, and one by the Congolese Minister of Sport. What impressed my was the brevity and straight to the point-ness of the speeches. When I am in meetings with Congolese people a 15-minute meeting can turn in to a four-hour meeting… No lie FOUR HOURS!

The speeches were each about 5 minutes long and from what I could understand (they were in French) they were concise and full of praise and excitement for the future of PJB and the city of Goma. Of course the speeches ended with the great act of The Ribbon Cutting. Its funny having a ribbon cutting for an outdoor basketball court because there’s no one entrance to the court. Instead we had to put 30 meters of blue ribbon across the middle of the court making it look a little bit like a crime scene. All facetiousness aside, it was amazing watching that ribbon being cut though because it was a mark, as I mentioned earlier of a new beginning.

I guess that could be what a ribbon cutting symbolizes. The ribbon is strung up with the tension of being tied to two unmovable objects. Then the ribbon is cut releasing all the tension and stress in the ribbon, and with that cut all the work and anticipation for the new court is also released and a sense of relief and excitement overwhelms you. The ribbon is a symbol for that pent up anticipation and when it is cut it symbolizes the release of all that tension.

After the excitement of cutting the ribbon there was only one thing left to do… break the court in. We set up three abbreviated matches, one 30-minute game for each team in our program. The first game was between our youth team (which for right now is all boys) and a team called TBC. The game was actually embarrassing for me as a coach because I watched as our boys got dominated in all aspects of the game, which stemmed from our “superstar” type mentality. Our boys tried throwing up threes every offensive possession, danced around with the ball on the perimeter and chased the ball around on defense like a bunch of prisoners fighting over a bar of soap. I was very embarrassed, and I let the youth coach know after the game that he needs to work a lot in practice.

The second game was much better as it featured our elite girls team. Our girls have come a long way in their attitude towards the game. Though their skills are still really really bad, they now have the desire to improve, and the heart to work and play hard. They also developed (all themselves without the encouragement of the coaches) leadership within the team that has equated to great team spirit and good sportsmanship. The girls played a select team from the top women players in Goma and won by about 8 points. They won by doing all the little things, rebounding, playing good defense, taking smart shots, and hustling (the best they can) after the ball. The girls have a long way to go, but at least they have a foundation of strong leadership and a good attitude.

The day finished with a match between our elite men’s team and Virunga. I was not playing or coaching at all today because I was wanted to be a spectator and see what the program looks like for the outside, so I just sat back and enjoyed all day. This was somewhat of a mistake because Dario, another elite player, did the same. Our elite team got trounced. I think the final whistle found us losing by about 20 points… in a 30-minute game. There was no communication, no hustle, and no thinking going on, on the court. It looked like we were a bunch of teenagers playing grown men (which was exactly the case, but we are trying to teach our players to play like men, even though they are young). Like the youth team, the reason the loss could be mostly blamed on the attitude coming in to the game. Basketball is a skill game, but it is more so a mental game, so when you are matched up well with skill (which was the case in this match), attitude is usually the determining factor. It is my focus now in the next month and a half to lay the foundation of great attitude, team work, and sportsmanship toward the game, so when I am not here the players can use the drills that they have learned over the past 6 months to add improved skill to their base of a great basketball attitude and mind.

All in all, Saturday was a great day. I arrived back home at about 7:30 PM, which made it a 13-hour day in the hot hot sun, so I jumped in bed to prepare for day two of the inauguration on Sunday.

Stayed tuned for day 2… (which will include some pics)