Bloggin' From The Boot: One Hall Of A Journey

So we won both games this week and are playing very well together.  Our final game is tomorrow night.  It is our second and final night staying at Hotel Titano in San Marino, and it will be difficult to leave this place.  The people here are very nice and the town is on a mountain overlooking the country, the view is remarkable. We all feel incredibly fortunate to be here and share this experience as a team.

Yesterday we spent the day in Rimini at the beach swimming in the Andriatic Sea.  Coach Mac did not face his fears and hang out in the sun.  We challenged the girls' team to a battle in volleyball, and with the help of Kevin "Wookie" Wilkins on constant attack with crushing spikes it was easy for us to prevail.  After one violent spike by Kevin, Daryl Cioffi questioned, "Do you really need to hit it that hard?  Does it make you feel more like a man?"  I thought maybe Kevin would feel bad, but it only made Daryl a more desirable target for him. 

This aggression from Kevin was also evident in our game today against the top professional team from Serbia. Colin was bringing the ball up the court against some solid ball pressure late in the game. We were winning by more than twenty at this point, and the kid defending Colin was met by a vicious blind screen at halfcourt from Kevin.  The kids' whole body jerked in the other direction as if he had been hit by a car.  The very next possession Kevin says to me, "I felt his brain move in his head."  But we exchanged gear with the team after the game, and they gave us some pretty cool hats so all was good.

Two days ago at our final day in Lake Como, I will say it was my favorite day thus far in the trip. We went on a boat cruise to the town of Bellagio, and there we jumped into Lake Como. We did not go to this place with the intention to swim but Coach Harding set the tone and the team followed his lead.

That night during halftime of the girl's game, myself Nikola, Mike Kernan, Dan Heppert, and A.J. took a walk to find some food.  Nikola insisted, "Trust me, there is no food anywhere around here." But literally twenty yards from the gym there was a small restaurant and the owner was really inspiringly hospitable.  We only ordered pizza, but after we ate the pizza he would bring out another dish until we were filled. He told us how much he loved the United States and it was really a pleasure to be treated this way.  Afterwards, A.J. said to us that, "Its people like that who really make you want to lend a hand to others and pay it forward."

Tomorrow morning we leave for Florence, and we are not looking forward to our 6:45 wake up call. We have our final game and I have to go now because it is Mike Kernan's 20th birthday and we are all celebrating.  Mike had twenty points during today's game, and usually its always Kevin's day but today is Mike's.

It is our last night together in Italy, and I think we are ready to head back home for the most part. We've spent the last two days in the ancient city of Rome. Today we woke up at 6:15 and went to a private mass at St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City.  Father Cleary, who graduated from Stonehill in 1969, was kind enough to give us a mass as well as a brief tour of the world's largest church. 

Coach Malone summed up our experience at St. Peter's when he said, "I'm not sure how you describe this place to someone who's never been before.  It's almost too extraordinary for words." 

The church from the inside is the size of two football fields, and actually to go to mass you travel beneath the church and into the catacombs. Meg Methven and I were fortunate enough to do a reading during mass this morning, something I will remember for a long time.

After Mass we traveled through the Vatican Museum, and what a long but interesting trip that was. The artwork in there is incredible to say the least, and of course, the Sistine Chapel was most impressive.

I joked with Coach Harding all week about how I couldn't wait to find what it smells like in the chapel, a line taken from one of his favorite movies Good Will Hunting of course. 

The chapel itself was truly amazing and I apologize to use such vague descriptive language, but really most of what we experienced in Rome was put best by Coach Malone. Walking through the Roman Coliseum I think was less about what the eye could see  but more about the energy that you feel. Again, hard to describe but there is certainly a force there that gives you a slight adrenaline, as if the battles were more recent than history tells us.

Last night at dinner I told Nikola I would give him ten euro if he could spell chocolate.  He began, "C-H-O-L."  He tried a few more times and failed but the table really enjoyed his attempts. I know I've been hard on him in my blogs, but I will say he's been almost an assistant tour guide to our team this week, having the right instincts and directing us where we need to be and how to get there.  "Follow me, I'm a city guy," is all we would get for an explanation as to why these instincts were so on point.

I'm confident that both teams will benefit from this experience going into this upcoming season. Besides trailing by two points in our third contest and listening to Coach Mac's halftime speech, there was really no problems or arguments during the entire trip. We are all looking forward to the start of our season and appreciate everyone who made this trip happen for us, it is something we are eternally grateful for.