The only people for me are the mad ones

‘THE only people for me are the mad ones’ – Jack Kerouac.

We have had some crazy bustrips. Imagine spending 10 hours-plus on a bus with no toilet, getting out in a cold, gloomy Glasgow, playing a game of basketball, losing and then getting on the bus and coming straight home.

That actually happened.

Even one of our closest away games to Worthing is a horror-show of a journey, with windy roads zigzagging along the south coast, travelling at the speed of turtle.

I start feeling carsick and somewhere along the way go a little loopy.
Journeys have always been that way for me and the Plymouth Raiders have some seriously long bus expeditions.

It starts with the long walk up the aisle of the bus. I nod hellos to everyone and shamble my way to the back, making sure to not knock fans in the face with my numerous bags. My provisions and supplies usually include a tupperware of smelly leftovers, my laptop, a pillow and duvet and various reading I may or may not get through.

This year I’m starting to take on the persona of the bus hobo with my bed rolled up and strapped to my back.

Everyone has ‘their’ seat. We are creatures of habit. It feels like life outside the bus doesn’t exist and we’re living in a perpetual groundhog day, zooming up and down the country, throwing balls through hoops and we all have our designated seat on this recurring ride.

To pass the time our team have developed various tricks to make the time go quicker.
Poker is one of them but even that is losing its appeal (maybe because I stopped winning). Another one of my favourites is gazing longingly out the windows at the passing fields.
We have a few fiction readers on the team, some fierce Nuts subscribers and most of us have iPods of some kind or another.

Films have been a good source of distraction over the years (if we are lucky enough to have a TV on the bus). I fondly remember a Terminator extravaganza, one through three back-to-back, accompanied by red wine and cheese. Some of the other films I haven’t been as enthusiastic about – the Vin Diesel retrospective for example.

I admit that at times away trips have got the best of me. I have taken to listening to the Power of Now on audiotape and with my shaved head I resemble a travelling Zen monk.
Delirium or boredom can take hold quickly.

The bus, I have decided, is like the hotel in The Shining. You can walk on to it one person and walk off at 4am, morphed into a crazed, cramped, miserable man, limping with pain and madness, smelling like a urinal.

This year I have switched 'my seat' in search of sanity. I bounced around a few, testing them out before settling on the row at the back of the bus.

I have made a pledge to myself that this season, on the long trips up and down the country it will be different and madness will be kept at bay. I may try to use the time to do something productive. Here is my pledge: read more books! write these blogs! watch critically acclaimed films! ponder this and that!

Most likely I’ll end up spending a lot of time imagining I am Jack Kerouac, speeding up and down the English highways, searching for that illusive something.

Kerouac was looking for kicks;, I would settle for a BBL Championship.

William Faulkner, Ibuprofen and the physiotherapist who is always right

‘GIVEN the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain’ – William Faulkner.
I pop four red little pills of Ibuprofen into my mouth and get ready for another battle on the hard-court.
It’s our seventh training session of the week and we’re only four days into the season.
I pack my gear into my bag: tiger-balm, basketball shoes, white and green vest, water bottle, Red Bull. I switch into basketball mode.
This has been a tough preseason for me. The training schedule has doubled and my body has gotten older.
I started pre-season with a niggle in my back – and my knees have been an on-going battle as long as I can remember.
But don’t feel sorry for me just yet; every player who has been playing as long as me has pain somewhere. A sob story along the basketball highway.
When I was 20, I was already preparing for a career in basketball plagued by tendonitis in my knees; a dull pain that gnaws away at you until you accept it, move on and then, all of a sudden, sharp angrier pains emerge that scream when you run, jump or walk up and down stairs.
My physiotherapist at the time simply said, ‘Basketball is a high maintenance sport’ and handed me an ice pack and box of Ibuprofen. She was right.
Still, there is something to be said about facing and overcoming physical or mental pain in sport. It gives you confidence – opening up your mind to self inflicted barriers about what you can and can’t do.
I remember running hill sprints during pre-season at Franklin Pierce College in New York in the US. It seemed like hours – our coach moving further and further away.
He was like some God, the light shining behind him, silhouetted, staring down at us from the top of the hill.
Desperately trying to reach him; sprinting up, being barked at, jogging back down, sprinting back up, then back down and up, and never, ever, STOPPING!
Stop and be kicked off the team was the message. Some did and they were gone.
Pre-season tends to be harsh and this one is certainly brutal, but there is a serious tone this year. We’re hungry to win, win, and win some more.
That is the business we are now in and success is what is demanded, this year more than ever.
I can see in our eyes and attitude that the BBL league championship is not something to aim for this season, but something tangible and maybe even expected. Thankfully, with four trophies on offer, winning the league won’t be our only shot at glory.
The tone has been set and I have been feeling the screens (screen equals running into a tree) from our bigs (big equals a man upwards of 6ft 7in built like a vending machine).
Every player in the squad is looking sharp.
My instinct is that when the season rolls around, we’re going to charge out the gates, muscles twitching, eyes focused and minds ready.
The key is maintaining that energy over the course of the entire season and being at our best at the business end.
Little nuances will be the factor then: teamwork, tenacity, injuries, coaching and, of course, lots of Ibuprofen.