After one of our Mystics games this year, I found out some crazy news. A parent from the opposing team came up to me right after the game and introduced herself. I was confused at first and had no idea why this woman was coming right up to me after the game to talk! She quickly told me that her daughters, who were players on the opposing team, were my third cousins. People say that it’s a small world, but I had no idea that it was this small!
The two third cousins came over to me after the game to take a picture and catch up. Generally, I don’t find it enjoyable to talk to opposing players after games. My opinion is usually something like this: “We just battled it out on the court and now you want to be friendly?” However, this situation was definitely different! They told me about their farm down in Kilkenny and other family around the world. In fact, it turns out that they have cousins working close to my hometown in Chicago! I guess there are Morrissey relatives all over the place that I never knew about.
Finding undiscovered family in Ireland has been incredible. Earlier in the year, my parents and I ran into some distant relatives in Carlow and found the old Morrissey family house. When I initially came over to Ireland for the Victory Scholars program, I could have never predicted that this would happen. I always wondered if there was any basketball in the Morrissey family blood. I have some uncles that played a little bit, but not too many Morrissey family members played basketball. It turns out, I had to look a little bit further to find basketball in the family tree. I now have an invite down to the farm in Kilkenny, which I will probably take advantage of soon with school wrapping up! Do you see the family resemblance?
