Eight.

Eight. Ocho. Acht. The number generates a variety of images and associations. An 8 ball. Spiders. Eight days of Hanukkah. Eight maids a milking. Eight is Enough. 8 Mile. Kobe. Jon and Kate plus 8. V8 juice. 8 tracks (bless you if you are old enough to remember these). The atomic number for Oxygen. Maybe your lucky number is 8. Your anniversary could be the 8^th. Perhaps you run an 8 minute mile—good for you. You might have 8 tattoos. Maybe you’ve broken 8 bones, in which case, you should chill out. Or maybe, you had 8 turnovers in your season opener last weekend. Anyone? No? Just me, huh. I used to really like 8. Now that number just pisses me the hell off. 8 turnovers. 8 times I gave the ball to the other team. 8 times I basically scored for them. After 8 weeks of preseason practices and games, I was 8 times worse than anyone else. I’ve totally moved on though.  

Some losses hurt more than others. Buzzer beaters, blow-outs, losing to teams that shouldn’t even be able to put their shoes on in the same gym as you. And then there is the worst kind: the kind that's your fault; the kind that you let get away. Our first game of the season started out ideally. We jumped out to a 12-4 lead, forced a time out by their coach and were executing pretty well. They quickly subbed and suddenly we forget how to dribble, how to pass. Down 7 at half, we had easily accumulated 20 turnovers already. Our starting PG (that’d be me) probably had 4. Just when we started to make our run, I got casual with the ball—stripped at half court, stolen pass to my post. I played 35 minutes, but my team may have been better served if I had only played the first 8.  We didn’t quit though. After being down by as much as 14, we ended up losing by 8. Eight.

 

Fortunately Ryan was here for season opener. Poor guy had to not only see my awful game, but he also sat and watched about 3-4 other games. I was literally napping at the gym I was there for so long. When we weren’t in the gym we were eating lots of food at lots of restaurants, walking around Chemnitz or playing my guitar. It was such a treat having someone from back home to talk to, sorta got home sick when he left. Can’t thank him enough for taking the time to visit me.

Season opening, despite the 8 point loss and 8 turnovers, was a unique experience. The basketball community, particularly in our division, is very close. A lot of the girls have played together at one point during their careers in Europe, so off the court the teams are very friendly, which is odd. In college I never liked my opponents. I mean even when I was nice to them at the banquets it was fake. But the girls here take pictures together and hug and hang out during the other games. They even go out and celebrate together after. It’s bizarre. I can pretend with the best of them, but to genuinely like these girls when all I want to do is beat them, well, I am just not equipped for that nonsense.

All jokes aside, 8 turnovers is ridiculous. But I didn’t come all this way to suck. Just as easily could've done that in Ventura. And I didn’t come all this way to sulk, so this pity party is over, but thanks for coming. We play again Saturday. Alls I know is I won’t be writing about no 8 next week.

 You can view my games online live at http://www.dbbl.de/cms/, you just have to click the link of the home team. We play Wolfenbuttel this weekend so you would click their home link. You can watch it live or go back and download the game after since I realize 8 is a little early for some people on a Saturday. See, no one likes 8. 

How did I get so lucky?

Have you ever had one of those nights that change your life? And you know instantly, somehow, those 24 hours have fundamentally, and irrevocably transformed you from that moment on? No? Me either, but Sunday was as close as I will ever come to such a night. I got two words for you: Kevin Costner. Okay, now I got three more: back stage passes. Ah hell, I’ll just give you a whole sentence instead of dragging this out. I saw Kevin Costner and Modern West (his band) play in Berlin with my long time friend Karina Thiel, annnnnnnd we had back stage passes. How did I get so lucky? This is where I thank Coach Vaughan, Tim Hoctor and the band from the bottom of my heart. And below is where I make you incredibly jealous with the details.

It’s all a blur; a fantastic, unforgettable string of improbable moments I can hardly believe. And if not for the embarrassing bag o’ swag I coaxed from the band as evidence, proof of an otherwise unbelievable night, Sunday would seem merely an illusion. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

There we were, the 3 of us—Tim Hoctor (friend to Coach Vaughan, Kevin Costner and Buena Basketball), Karina (who conveniently lives in Berlin) and myself walking back stage to see “Kev” as Tim kept saying, with a casualty and familiarity that was simply laughable to Karina and me. “Ah yes, Kev” we’d repeat between giggles, our own disbelief as evident as our lack of sophistication required for this moment. We approach a door, “Kevin Costner’s Dressing Room”. A small squeal slips from my mouth. I sheepishly look around confused--wasn't me I suggest. Get it together Sam.  “Ready?” Tim prompts. In that exact moment, Karina and I learned that there are some things you just can never be ready for. We nod, like idiots, terrified that even breathing wrong will disrupt this sublime moment. Upon entering Mr. Costner’s dressing room, I observed what could only be described as the loosest interpretation of the word “room” ever used. Room? This room was bigger and nicer than my apartment. This room was no room at all. While I was lost in my own trivial observation, it happened. I saw him. And then I was shaking his hand, and I promise you, if my palm hadn’t been so disturbingly clammy, I wouldn’t have let go. After taking some pictures and talking basketball, Mr. Costner played a couple songs for us, perhaps also in preparation for the show, which I had now forgotten entirely about. The band invited us to join them for their pre-show traditions, which I have decided out of respect for them to not reveal. It was awesome though, I assure you. Then, it was time for the show, and even though Karina and I had convinced ourselves we were apart of the band now, walking on stage with them wasn’t really an option. As Karina and I walked out of the room we immediately clung to each other as if to ensure ourselves it was all real, and as our eyes met all we could do was laugh, hysterically, in awe of our luck. And still, amazingly, our night was just beginning. 

After the show, the fantastic show, we spent another hour with the band and Mr. Costner gave Karina and I a present I think we both will never forget—sitting about 2 feet in front of us, he sang us a song he wrote about the Ventura Fair called “Where do we go from here”, and I kid you not, I thought I might faint. You look into those man’s eyes while he’s singing to you and smiling and your knees will wobble too, don’t matter that I was sitting down. Before we left, we got to see their tour bus and I turned on the old Whitcomb charm and got us some swag--the drummer’s sticks, posters, t-shirts and CD’s. 

For 4 hours that night Karina and I weren’t in Germany, we weren’t 5,000 miles away from a home cooked meal and ice. For one night, thanks to Mr. Costner, his band, and some incredible people who made it happen, we felt like we were home. And while we were sad to say good-bye, we will always have Berlin. 

Back to reality—my weekend wasn't all fancy dressing rooms and sweaty hands, sadly. My team also played our final preseason games this weekend before my trip to Berlin. We won both, though not by much. In fact the first game we won with a 3 right before the buzzer. Ya like apples? Well, I hit the 3—howdya like them apples? Saturday we played a division 2 team and on our way to the game one of the vans was having problems so we barely made it on time, and had just 10 minutes to warm up. We started out pretty bad, but managed to win. Season opener is this weekend. We play Freiberg, the best team in our division. Season opener here is a big deal. All the teams come to the city that is hosting it, and this year we are. So there are games here all weekend. Kinda cool.

Shout out to Ryan Bolland! He is coming Wednesday and staying for almost a week, so he will be here for season opener. It will be really nice to have a friend from home. Sorta feel bad for him though, Kevin Costner is a tough act to follow. 

What's in a name.

I love winning. Even more than I love winning, I HATE losing. You just never get used to that pang. And it never gets milder either. Every loss is like the first. So while I had a great time winning our first two games this weekend in our tournament, I barely remember it because we lost our last game and I am still recovering from the pang. We lost by 6 and generally, as a rule, I never blame a loss on one thing, but as with any rule, there are exceptions. I can say without any doubt that we lost because every other possession, almost literally, we gave the ball back to them. It was unreal. It started with me and as with so many things relating to me these days, it was contagious. We will face this team again in our Division come season, and that is the only thing providing some solace. All our team needs right now is consistency... despite winning most of our games so far, we have yet to put 40 solid minutes of basketball together. 

I don’t know when it happened, but I’m old. Ya, you heard me. I MUST be like, at least 35 the way my body aches. Bad joke, I know. I’m off my game. But, I am actually terrified by the thought of how I will feel when I am older if this is how my body feels now. Silver lining, silver lining, ah there it is: I’ll finally be able to ride those motorized carts desperate for use in Vons (or Safeway if you prefer). So I got that going for me.

Speaking of sweet rides, guess who got herself some wheels (free of course)?  She’s a real beaut, let me tell ya. My favorite shade of blue, she’s got nice rims and a comfy leather seat; more of a mid-size sedan than anything. I put a picture of Helen and me below (that is her name... ya know, classy older woman, still in good form; graceful, but tough). I’ll wait while you scroll down and look…….I know what you are thinking: we look good together, right? Annnnnnnnnd Helen is a bicycle, yes. There’s just no fooling you. Bygones. Laugh all you want, but not only does Helen corner like she’s on rails, she has the coolest little bell. And I am not sure if you can tell, but she came with a little tramp stamp on her back above the tire…yep, it’s the number 32. You say hussy, I say takes one to know one. Only the most sophisticated locals cruise around on one of these bad boys. Don’t be jealous.

So a while back we took team pictures. I believe I posted my fantastic head shot, or “waist up” shot if you like, on the ol’ blog. Welllllllll, unbeknownst to me, the club also makes these inconveniently and rather inappropriately oversized trading cards as well, which required that we take some solo “action” shots. It’s funny, basketball is all about action and movement, but when there is a photographer in front of you demanding you demonstrate said actions, you’d be surprised how quickly you lose all mental and physical capacity to, well, act. You want me to dribble between my legs while smiling at the camera? This suddenly becomes mission impossible and the more you mess up the more embarrassed you become—“yes, I’ve actually been dribbling a ball for more than a decade now, they say it’s like riding a bike, I’ll try to remember.” Then, embarrassment quickly turns to frustration when he suggests another action, since evidently dribbling is just too difficult.  Finally, frustration breeds rage, which is only further perpetuated by Gary, the arrogant photographer who thinks coaching his 8 year old makes him the next Phil Jackson and an authority on the mechanics of dribbling. Dribble with my fingers, ah yes I almost forgot, thanks Gare. I love photo shoots. Good times. Now, I’ll give you a moment to consider the “action” shot they selected for me. Let me preface this by saying they took numerous, nay, superfluous amounts of action shots, but this one, this was the winner they picked. Did ya get a good look? I’m sure you’ve got some thoughts bouncing around in your head, but here is my unsolicited insight. First, my name is spelled incorrectly, which might be kismet actually since I was considering changing my name to something less…well less Whitcomb-y. Withcomb (what the card says) has sorta this regal, European thing going on. I dig it. They really did me a favor here. But, it’s really all down hill from there. My only take away from the picture itself is that my poses, my action shots must have been sooooo appalling, sooooo incredibly unusable they were forced to use an arbitrary, unprompted picture of me where I’m not even looking at the camera. Perhaps the camera detected some of my embarrassment…or frustration…or rage. Pity. I always thought those looks agreed with me.

Two Sami's are better than one

So there is something I would like to clear up. One of you asked me if I would write about my teammates in this blog. Did I mislead you guys? Was I not clear—this blog is about ME.  Likewise, this isn’t MTV; you don’t get to call in requests.  BUT, since I happen to reallllly like the person making the request, and I am only half pretending to be this narcissistic, I will make an exception.

Our roster is full and final now. We picked up a new girl this past week. An American. Oh, you wanna know her name? I’ll give you one guess. Yup. Sami. For fun, wanna guess how she spells it? Uh-huh. The. Exact. Same. Way. This is my life now. Before I never knew what was being said, but I at least knew when I was being talked at. Who the hell knows now. She’s a real gem though. Seriously. She’s the PB to my J. There are 2 other Americans (one that also has German citizenship so she doesn't count), 5 Germans, 1 Serbian and 1 girl from Holland. Since our style is up-tempo (run, run, run) and our offense is primarily our fast break, we don’t really have your typical center, rather lots of tall, versatile 3-4’s who shoot well and a couple girls who don’t really shoot so we throw them inside. Wanna know more about them? Go read their blogs :)

Earlier this week, my eye was really bothering me, so I self-diagnosed myself with Conjunctivitis. What is that saying, ah yes: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. False. Who comes up with this crap? It’s bogus. Anyways, so I went to a doctor out here. Not gonna lie, I was freaking out. Here is the long version of what happened: I walked into her office, she was definitely playing the part--stethoscope around her neck, frightening human skeleton model lurching in the corner reminding us of our impending future. However, a stethoscope does not a doctor make, I learned. I sit, inform her of my eye problems and offer my astute diagnosis; meanwhile she pokes the eyeball in question, once. I’ll mention here she did this without a glove. I haven’t been a doctor long, but I think that wearing gloves is rule numero uno. Then, just like that, without any real examination or questions, she hands me a prescription for Conjunctivitis. Wondering what you missed? Me too. I’ve babysat kids who could’ve pretended to be a doctor better. This certainly gave credence to the adage “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I don’t think that is one of the ways to be a doctor. The whole “customer’s always right” doesn’t really apply here, doc. I guess next time I should go bigger, maybe try for Progeria. Might be a little tougher, though maybe not. I would like to address the question I know most of you have been asking yourself since this story started—isn’t Conjunctivitis more commonly referred to by a more popular colloquial moniker? Nooooope. Not so long as I have it. I’ll ask that you only call it this less descriptive, less degrading name.  

As mentioned previously, we had a tournament in the Czech this weekend (two games Saturday, one game today.) We went 2-1. I learned more in that one loss than in all our wins combined, specifically relating to being a good PG. Like, for instance, did you know you are only supposed to pass to the people on your team? Pistol Pete should’ve prepared me for that. Incidentally, I had some DIMES to the refs. Just sayin. The other PG was solid. She controlled the tempo and her team, while seemingly making every right decision. I wonder if she’s been doing this for more than a month. I’ll be watching that film for a while. Least until this weekend when we host our own tournament.

To add insult to injury, in our loss, I got 2 intentional fouls. I don't think I've ever got an intentional foul even when I was intentionally fouling. Leave it to refs to miss the point. I literally can’t tell you what I did to deserve them. I fouled a girl when she went up for a break away lay-up, but we were even and I was trying to block her. Wasn’t hard or super aggressive, pretty standard, got the ball but also some of her nose. If you'd seen her nose, you'd know it was unavoidable. Whistle. Intentional foul. Then, a girl crossed over in front of me and I tried to pick her pocket but got a little more than I bargained for, intentional foul. Again, not a hard foul, she didn’t fall or anything. It was the strangest thing. And of course I couldn't ask the ref to take his whistle out of his butt to explain the call to me. I was the epitome of dumbfounded. 

College football started this week. Suddenly I am paralyzed with homesickness. I don’t know what I am gonna do when college basketball starts. Huskies are 1-0, woop woop. Even better than that, Oregon lost. You know what that is, dontcha? That's right, a win-win.