A British Thanksgiving

So I learned the hard way that Thanksgiving in England sucks.  There are no festive decorations, no turkeys, sweet potatoes or pumpkin pies and no NFL football.  I guess this all makes sense since the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts and not Plymouth, England.  Unfortunately, my team didnt have much sympathy for my American heritage and decided to have practice from 7 to 10 pm Thursday night, so my initial idea of making a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving dinner for my teammates and myself went down the drain.  But lets be honest...my culinary abilities or lack there of would have probably prevented this from happening anyways.  But I was able to do the next best thing and made myself a nice turkey sandwich for dinner.  Not being home for Thanksgiving definitely made me miss all that I am thankful for...especially my mom.

This weekend we had a big matchup at home against the Westminster Warriors, a tough team from London who also sits atop the standings at 5-0.  It was a big test for us not only because they were a formidable opponent, but also because we had a challenging week of practice as a few guys on the team "weren't really getting along" i guess you could say.  Basically, a couple guys let their egos get the best of them and it flared up into a few confrontations during the week...one confrontation even got me kicked out of practice for the first time in my basketball career.  I was guilty by association as I happened to be on the team with the guys who were at each others throats - literally and figuratively - so the coach saw enough and just sent the whole team to the showers early.  Anyways, we were able to regroup and come away with a great win against Westminster.  I had a solid game with my usual few points and few rebounds.

Another highlight of the week was a radio interview I did for a sports show on the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).  The chairman of the team asked me to fulfill an interview request...mostly because I'm one of the few guys on my team that speaks English well.  The interview was a lot of fun and went pretty well except for when I tried pronouncing the word "welcoming" and it sounded like I had a mouthful of marshmallows.  All in all though it was a fun experience and little did I know its the most listened to radio station in Yorkshire.  Here is the link to the interview:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00c46lw/West_Yorkshire_Sport_19_11_2010/.  It starts about 10 or 15 minutes in but if you don't find yourself bored enough to want to listen to the entire thing, here are some highlights.

Announcer: "And do the ladies like basketball players in Bradford?"
 Me: "Uhhh......uhhhhh.......It hasn't worked yet."

Announcer: "Stand up. Let me see how big you are..... (Pause)... Oh my! You are a mon-stahhhhh. A monst-ahhh. When people see you do they immediately just ask if you play basketball?"