These past two weeks in Limerick have flown by. It’s mostly been spent getting settled in and meeting a ton of people. Since classes don’t start until Monday, I’ve had time to explore Limerick and coach a lot of age groups of the Limerick Celtics. My main team is going to be the Under 16 boys. I’ve been able to coach them a few times already and it has been good to get to know them and see what their strengths and weaknesses are as players. I am really excited to be with this group and looking forward to seeing how much we can improve through the year. I’ve also helped coach teams all the way from Under 10 boys and girls, to the Under 18 boys. This has provided me with the opportunity to meet many families all throughout the club. Meeting the families has been the most rewarding experience so far. Everyone has been so nice and accommodating to Liz and I. Different members of the club have helped us out including taken us shopping, driving us to practice, and making us dinner (which is huge because I can’t cook). Coming to a completely new country and being dropped into the middle of a new community thousands of miles from home is really difficult, but it has been made a lot easier because of how welcoming and helpful the families have been.
I want to give a special shout out to my Coach Tony and his wife Michelle for everything they have done for us. They’ve made us members of their family. They’ve made us dinner on numerous occasions, picked things up for our apartment, and even invited us over to help out at their 7 year old daughter’s birthday party. With as much going on in their lives, including running the entire Celtic’s club, they have been able to look after us and make sure we have everything we need.
This weekend is a big basketball weekend for the Celtics. Last weekend we had a preseason tournament in Carlow. This weekend is opening weekend for the National League. The Celtics were recently promoted to the National League, so this is the first National League game ever. We have a 3 hour drive to Sligo with tipoff at 7:30. Our squad is really excited and ready to get the season started. Check in for results on the Celtic’s Facebook page or basketballireland.ie and make sure to check out my video on Facebook to get an exclusive behind the scenes gameday video of the first ever Celtic’s National League game!
