Silver Medal, Time Back Home, and Summer Fun - Blog #46 ('26 Summer)
Basketball Update:
Sorry for the long delay in posting this... I know a lot of you have been on the edge of your seats, refreshing your emails every day, waiting for it! To tell the truth, I seriously have not even had a free afternoon to sit down and write my year-end blog. I was extremely busy this summer and in my last few weeks in Poland. I have finally had some time while getting settled in Germany the last couple of weeks. I will get into everything though.
Most of you probably know this, but we ended up with a silver medal in the Polish finals! Having a few weeks to reflect on it now, it was an absolutely amazing season. At the start of the season, we were picked to be fighting from relegation. We ended it with two medals in our hands. Now, they're not quite the color we were hoping for, but that's the way It shakes out sometimes. We swept Gdynia in the semi-finals which featured an epic road comeback and an awesome closeout home game. I had a solid series overall.
The Legia series for the championship was an absolute battle. We stole game 1 with an epic buzzer-beater in Warsaw. Then, got blown out in both games 2 & 3. We dominated in game 4 to tie things up 2-2. Then, we lost game 5. Game 6 had perhaps the most exciting moment of my career. We controlled most of the game before a couple of screw-ups in the fourth quarter put us down 1 with 1.1 seconds left. Then, Conley hit a stepback buzzer-beater to extend the series to Game 7. The scenes were insane. Grown men crying. Suli leading the fan section. Conley crowd surfing. It was an amazing game and an amazing moment. I won't forget it for as long as I live. We threw what we thought was the final punch of the season, only to ride off into the sunset in Warsaw in Game 7. However, things don't always end in a fairytale. We lost in Warsaw and ended with silver medals. Frustrating way to end the season, but not bad for a team that was supposed to be fighting to stay in the league.
I will talk more next week about my new team! I am in Ludwigsburg, Germany, playing in Germany's top league, the BBL. Because of my passport, I count as a German. It has been great
so far, but I will talk more about this in my next blog.
Leadership Lesson:
I did some serious reflecting trying to think of what the big lesson I learned from the year was as it pertains to leadership and life in general. I didn't write about this much during the season, but to be honest, we had a bit of turmoil this season. Nothing crazy, but we had a mix of a few personalities that didn't always match. However, at the same time, that is the beautiful thing about a basketball locker room. You get a big mix of different people from different backgrounds from different parts of the world who would have never met each other, let alone been teammates, let alone been friends. While we were all fairly different from one another, we all had one important thing in common. We all truly loved basketball and wanted to win. Sometimes, it can be as simple as that. A shared love and pursuit of a goal can overshadow lots of shortcomings on a team. That hunger and love are hard to find at the end of the season, especially for us Americans. A simple yet important lesson learned from last season.
Top 5 of the Summer:
Favorite Things About Summer:
4th of July - This has probably become my second favorite holiday, only to Christmas. It is the only real holiday in the US in the summer, so it makes for a great excuse to get together with family and friends and enjoy some good food, weather, and the US. Only thing is that if I'm too close to the fireworks, I get a little scared.
Ice Cream - Because the weather is warm in summer, you always have a good excuse for the best dessert, ice cream/frozen custard.
Sun - Notice how I don't say heat, but rather the sun. Sunny weather is the best, and it is something that you simply do not get in the winter, especially in Europe. When spring and summer roll around, it's not so much the heat that I get excited about. Rather, it is the sun and the feeling when it hits your face. That's tough to beat. Plus it gets you a nice tan.
Fruit - The fruit selection in the summer is miles ahead of any other season. Sure, It's nice to have pumpkin/apple flavored stuff in the fall, but NOTHING compares to the boom of fruit variety when summer rolls around. Mango, peach, pineapple, and watermelon all hit their primes in the summer. Those are four of my five favorite fruits.
Eating/Drinking Outside - The vibe of eating or drinking on a terrace or in a backyard in the summer is unmatched. Simply being out in nature or without a roof over your head can improve this experience so much. You do not get this in any of the other seasons.
What Else Did I Do?
It was an absolutely packed summer for me. Right after our season ended, we had an amazing bus ride back. We all had drinks on the bus and were able to loosen up a bit. We got back super late at like 5 am. Then, I had a 10:30 train to Wroclaw to pick up my German passport. The next day, we had an event with the fans at this mini waterpark in ZG. It was a ton of fun. We signed a million autographs, took a bunch of pictures, and had a lot of nice conversations with all of our fans. Even though we did not win gold, they treated us like we did. They even blasted "We Are the Champions" by Queen on the speakers. At the end, a bunch of us went down this waterslide, and it was so much fun. Brought me back to the Dells when I was a kid. The fans there truly are the best, and I am hoping to be able to come back for a game at some point, somehow this year. I got picked up at like 3 am the next morning to head to the airport, and I said goodbye to Poland. It really was an amazing year. I will treasure all of the relationships I made there for a long time. A lot of genuinely good people in Zielona Gora... a big thank you to all the fans!
I flew back to Chicago and spent the night at my buddy Cole's apartment before flying to Emerald Isle, North Carolina for my boy, KG's, wedding. Kyle is one of my friends and ex-teammates from Hillsdale, so it was a ton of fun getting to see all those guys again. Every time we all get together, It Is just like old times. I get way less mature, not that I am to begin with, and we laugh nonstop. It is one of my favorite parts about my time home during the summer. We spent a bunch of time on the beach body surfing and larping (look that up if you want to have some fun). We went out the night before the wedding and had a blast. Then, the wedding was just perfect. It was smaller and super Intimate. We danced, blew bubbles, and drank the night away. It was a super unique location which made it even more fun.
I flew back on Sunday and finally set foot back in Wisconsin. Nikki had flown back over the weekend, and it was great to be back home together. Carter had his 3rd birthday party. We got our family together for the first time in a long time. So amazing to be back home with everyone. I spent a decent amount of time with family during the week. My second wedding of the summer was my good friend from high school, Dominic Mussatto. Also, I got to be an usher for it! It was my time to see all of my high school buddies. I hadn't seen one of my best friends, Sam Tallmadge, in two years! Seeing all of those guys was great. Dom got married in Oconomowoc, WI, at the gorgeous Lac La Bella Country Club. It was a beautiful venue, and the ceremony was for real perfect. Another amazing night. We stayed the night at Tommy O'Brien's house which is
on Lac La Belle.
Dom's wedding was on July 3rd, so Nikki and I woke up super early the next morning to head up north for the 4th week. It was an amazing week! Nikki's Aunt Wendy threw us an engagement party. It was our first time having a celebration since getting engaged, and it was actually a lot of fun. We played a couple of games to test how well Nikki and I knew each other. We actually killed it! We were both kind of surprised at this, but I guess over the course of 9.5 years, you really get to know someone. The rest of the week was great. Lots of boat rides, pickleball, yard games,
fishing, and relaxing.
We passed back through Brookfield for a night to have dinner with my parents before going to Chicago to hang with Nikki's friends. Little did Nikki know (or more than I thought), I had been planning a surprise engagement party for her with a bunch of our closest friends and family. It was originally supposed to be the weekend I would propose, but thank goodness I proposed when I did. Nikki would have been way too ornery in July if I waited. I reserved a few tables at this bar for the surprise. It was awesome! A great gathering and a great night out too. I dropped off Nikki the next day at the airport for her to go back to Amsterdam. Wow, that was quick!
I also took a trip to Minnesota to get Nikki's ring re-sized, see the newlyweds (Dom and Jenna), and spend some time with my basketball people at the U of M. I worked out with my old CSU teammate, Josiah Strong, and saw all my old coaches. It was a great few days. I even got to play beach volleyball with Dom and his friends. I stopped in Eau Claire to have lunch with my buddy, Kevin. Then, I stopped for dinner in Madison to see Dom (Cartier) and Ev. I got home at night and finally was able to take a breath for a couple of days.
My last big event of the summer in the US was my niece's/goddaughter's baptism. I got to see a lot of my extended family at the ceremony and at Maddie's house for the afterparty. The ceremony itself was awesome, and it was really cool for Maddie and Austin to pick me to be Ella's godfather (*insert cheesy quote from The Godfather*). It is something that I will take very seriously for Ella's whole life. I can't wait to watch her grow up!
That's the long US summer recap. I will talk a bit more about my Euro summer in my next blog, so stay tuned! Sorry again for the long delay, but I will be back posting on a most likely biweekly basis. I am so excited for this next year and chapter of mine and Nikki's lives!
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