First Interview's in German

Since I was 15, I have done somewhere between 200 and 300 interviews, mostly with the newspaper, but quite a few also for TV and radio.  My best quote to date happened as a freshmen in high school when I said (talking about a really bad game I had played earlier in the season), 'I did everything wrong that game but pee my pants.'  I received a package of Depends Men's diapers from a friend after making that remark.

Last weekend, I did something new in an interview: I spoke in a foreign language.  (Actually, I tried to do a newspaper interview in Spanish down in Mexico after a basketball game a few years ago, but answered the reporters question about the game with an answer about how beautiful the city of San Cristobal was. My translator stepped in and did his job after that.)

Anyways, last Sunday evening after a tough loss to Recklinghausen, I sat down and spoke my friend Jan, who is a radio reporter for Radio WMW here in Borken.  He started the first question in English and I answered in (very poorly spoken) German.  We continued our dialogue in German for the next 10-15 minutes.  Halfway through I even though to myself, 'which language are we speaking? Oh right, we are doing this in German and I am actually totally following along!'  Well, not totally, but enough to keep going.  I needed clarification (in English) on a couple of the questions, but overall it was conducted in German.  

My embarrassment is for your pleasure.  Poor Jan had to edit our 10-15 minute conversation down to 20 seconds of coherent sound bites. Here is the link of the interview if you want to hear it for yourself. It's only two minutes long. 


22.01. Einem US-Basketballer gefällts im Kreis by user9198427

I followed up that interview the next morning with a short newspaper interview in German (ok, I needed some help with clarifying a couple questions there as well.)   The article is attached here.

Since we are on the subject of basketball (something that isn't talked about on the blog too much.)  Here is a quick update and a couple of pictures from the  season.

The team that I play for, RC Borken, is currently 3-8.  We had to forfeit the first game that we won because one of our players wasn't registered properly.  Only in Germany can a clerical error cost a team a game.  So instead of being 4-7, we are down at the bottom of the standings, trying to stay in the league.  Remember: the last two teams in each division at the end of the season go down a league.  If you win the championship, you move up a league.  If this were the case in American football, the Detroit Lions would be playing at the High School Junior Varsity football level.

Hopefully, we can win a few more games the second time around (we have played each time once) in the new year.

The team that I coach is currently 7-4 halfway through the season and is tied for third place.  We have been playing well at home, but our away games have been generally tough.  We need to keep winning these next few games in order to have a shot at the Championship towards the end of the season.

Here are some photos from this season so far:

Bed head and unshaven.  Sorry ladies, this guy's taken

Christmas Game with Saint Nikolas

I will pretend to say that this shot was not blocked by the guy with arms two feet longer than mine.  

Fadeaway.  I need to tuck the elbow in more. 

Recklinghausen Game

Dortmund Game

Actually going to not shoot it for once.