Athletics coach for Team USA – Baltimore Update

Baltimore is humid.  No surprise I guess when we're so close to the water.  Warm as well.  Today (Sunday) is going to be a huge day, lots of waiting, buses and travel.  It seems we have been traveling a long way so far and will never get there!
Firstly, the send off by Special Olympics Wisconsin and Team USA yesterday were great.  I can't imagine all the work that goes into getting those organized.  Team Wisconsins' flight went well, just a couple hrs to Baltimore.  We were one of the last flights in, so we had to change clothes in a bathroom for dinner no time to get to our hotel.  The send off dinner lasted a few hours and then gather up the whole athletics (track) team, load on buses and get checked into the hotel.  A not-so-quick team meeting and it's 11:00.  Every one was cooked by then.  The best thing about the reunion of the team was just how fired up everyone was to see each other again. Those days at training camp paid off with how close the athletes got.

My funniest memory of the evening, however, was when Michael, one of my athletes asked:"ahhh, ahhhh,, coach Steve, ahhhhh, why, why do I have so many pillows on my bed?" (there are like 6 of them at the hotel) "why do I need so many pillow???" I just replied "just in case someone has a big head." at which Michael accepted that reason, and James, his room mate, just started chuckling.

So onward, today we hang at the hotel 1/2 day, spend 6 hrs waiting at. The airport, take off in a 747 for Shannon Ireland, refuel, stretch the legs and four more hrs to the Isle of Rhodes in the Aegean sea. We'll finally be close to Greece.
Okay, onto to wake up my guys.
Best,
Steve

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 at 11:30 pm and is filed under FOW Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.