This was the summer I journeyed to Stuttgart (Germany) to start my new “career” as a basketball player & coach. I gave myself a three month window to land in a country where I didn’t speak the language, make the necessary contacts with the local residents who were involved in a sport that was still relatively unpopular, land a try-out and make a team. I did have one contact (Wolfgang Elbers, a friend of a friend of a friend of an assistant coach at UPS in Tacoma) who did help me navigate the first few weeks in Germany, and he did finally get me one tryout in Wurzburg. The tryout itself was a bust, and yet I met Manuel Sutter there, a shooting guard who had also tried out for the team. We developed a congenial rapport rather quickly and he soon offered to help me find a team. And we indeed became good friends that summer, and I did indeed get a few more tryouts (just as my money was running out and my return flight was looming), and I indeed ended up signed a contract for my first season as a professional – and that is how my German adventure began …

“Basketball is in my blood. It was my obligation to at least try.” ~ Hakeem Olajuwon

Filed under: My Life in Pictures by Scaughdt