SPECIAL DAY IN GREECE

Two days ago Greek people were getting BUUUUSY!!! On March 25th, the country celebrates two things at once:

1. Greek Independence Day- historically
2. The Feast of Annunciation- spiritually, because on this day in the Greek Orthodox calendar, the archangel Gabriel appeared to the maiden Mary and announced the news that she was pregnant with the divine child... with this "a new spirit was about to be born in Greece".

I wanted to use this day of celebration and appreciation here in Greece to answer a question that one reader had asked me a while back (sorry for taking so long to reply, Michal, but I could never find the right timing). The question was: "what did make u to choose greece as next station?"

Well, the easy thing to say would be "only God knows why", but I know that you wanna know a little bit more about my thinking process and motives. So, I'll give it a try to put them into words...

When my agent first called me and told me that I had an offer from Greece, I was a little hesitant. Simply because I had never played in Greece before, never really had followed the Greek league nor had any experience about Greece... in 2003 I had been to Greece once for the FIBA Cup-- ironically to play the team in Glyfada back then... that's all.... so for me it was all very unfamiliar.

I started giving it a second look though, when I saw the effort that the management of Proteas was making to bring me here after they had found out that my contract in Valencia had ended. I felt valued and honored... definitely a good baseline ;)

So I started asking some of my friends who had played in Greece before, and via facebook I then contacted Ashley and Emily, who at that point I didn't know. Everybody had only good things to say... I was getting a little angry, because I had set my mind on not coming to Greece... and then last but not least one of my ex-teammates and Greek friend Anastasia Kostaki guaranteed me that I would have a good time here, and that this club would really be good to me... so ultimately I decided to opened my heart to giving Proteas a chance.

Even though I had some other offers, I woke up one morning and all of a sudden had this peace about coming to Greece. I went with that gut feeling and signed the papers... Thankfully in my career I can say that this feeling has never led me astray... THANK YOU GOD!!

Today I am just happy to be here. Sometimes in the professional basketball world (we can't forget that IT IS a BUSINESS) the goal is so present at all times that the journey gets overlooked... and I believe that life is about enjoying the journey... and I am happy to be brought "back to this truth" here at Proteas. Yes, basketball is about the results... I understand that... I am a competitor... I loooooove to win and hate to lose... and here at Proteas, despite the ranking, I do feel like a winner... I feel that EVERY DAY we are getting better, and it's a good feeling.

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to live in a country as beautiful as Greece for a part of my basketball career.... I was told before that it was beautiful, but I didn't know it was THAAAAT beautiful!
Thanks to the staff of Proteas for having me and for letting me be a part of this great journey in the history of your club.

And thanks to my lovely teammates-- Greeks and Americans-- for being such great women, for all the laughter and the hacking in the practice... ahm, I mean... for working hard each and every day!!!! YOU ROCK.... WE ROCK.... let's go PROTEAS!!!