I spent the last five weeks traveling in Europe with my partner Ben. I will start out answering the most common questions I am asked: We went to England (Bristol), France (Toulon, Cassis, Corsica), Italy (Levanto, Tuscany, Florence), Spain (Seville, Malaga, Barcelona); I don’t know if we “backpacked”…we carried backpacks, and we had a tent. (We only used the tent once as a last resort on a rainy night at a far from ideal campground.) I’m not sure what factors must be present to be “backpacking through Europe” so I cannot give a direct ‘yes’ or ‘no’; Yes, we had an inspiring and exciting experience.

We covered more ground that the aforementioned small towns, island and cities. Our rental car took us through and to Genova, Pisa, Cannes and the rest of the beautiful southern coast of France (continuously throwing Euros out the window every 20km at a toll stop) and then through several towns in the Chianti wine region in Tuscany. We stayed at a friend’s house, a campground, a French ceramist’s cottage on work trade, the floor of two overnight ferry boats, an apartment and villa in a vineyard (we were with my family for this part), a bedroom/hostel in an old giggly Italian woman’s home in Florence, more hostel’s and pensions throughout and a miniscule bedroom in Barcelona (Airbnb).

I came across many other travelers and tourists, German, Australian and American. Many Americans were college-aged and intent on partying through Europe, displaying an embarrassingly immature elitism, expressing no concern for the volume of their voice, the dress of their clothes or behavior (i.e. motioning a suggested throw of an American football to any one of the eight elder Italian men stationed next to the once quaint inlet where they regularly watch the days go by).

This played into some of the stigmas abroad about Americans. I learned in prior travels in Brazil and Central America that people there perceive all Americans as wealthy. Selfishly wealthy, according to the Guatemalan that called our country “Los Estados Banditos”. In Europe it seemed that more people were curious to learn where we stood with our current political situation. (Europeans are more familiar with American politics than I am with theirs.) Some saw the U.S. as a country of abundance and expanse.

Vernazza, Italy

There are many customs, policies, institutions and behaviors in this land mass governed by the United States of America that I am not proud of, whether I’m home or abroad. I find them wasteful, like the built-in obsolescence of the majority of our consumer goods, or the packaging of our food products. I find them inefficient, like the economic development decisions made by the City of Toledo. I find them unethical, like the way our natural resources are depleted for those obsolescent consumer goods. I find them degrading, like the laws that prohibit same sex marriages. I find them corrupt, like the majority of the political, financial and criminal justice systems that operate in our country. I also find them heartbreaking, like the continuous funding for and implementation of military warfare.

This does not make me “unpatriotic”, this makes me an opinionated and somewhat skeptical human. In observing the protests, rebellions and revolutions throughout the world that have happened over the last year, I realize that no matter in which country one lives, there are still the pros and cons.

Spending five weeks in Europe brought to light the pros of our North American culture and country. I realized that as I became slightly homesick toward the end of the trip, it wasn’t a specific food or thing that I missed, it was the comforts of what home has to offer. Some of those comforts can be found wherever you set up a home, like a consistent and familiar bed, fresh clothes and homemade coffee in the morning. Some are particular to the part of the world that is my home, familiar faces, familiar sounds and familiar and favorite ways to pass time.

The United States has more interesting and beautiful places to visit that I could cover in a lifetime. The people are just as delightful as anywhere else in the world. The food here is everything and anything in bigger cities and hearty and comfort in small towns, but I am happy to be home and have a garden and kitchen to make my own. It is a great place to come home to where memories, past and new, await. Now if our government can skip this cursory care act and implement universal health care, then our country and its people will be considerably better off.

Tags: England, France, Italy, Spain, Stacy Jurich, Wandering Roots

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Opinion, Wandering Roots.
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Less than two weeks after returning from a trip to Israel, former UT women’s basketball player Melissa Goodall is preparing for a much longer trip to the Canary Islands in Spain. Goodall signed a professional contract Aug. 30 with Uni-Tenerife in Santa Cruz, Spain.

“I’m really excited, because it’s going to be a really cool experience,” Goodall said. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about the place I’ll be, the team and the coach. It’s getting really close now, and as it gets closer I’m getting more and more excited.”

Goodall’s contract runs until the end of April 2012. She is flying out Sept. 14; she and teammates will share an apartment that is provided by the team and fully furnished. Uni-Tenerife plays in the Spanish Second Division Professional Basketball League.

“She just worked her tail off the entire time that she played for us,” UT head coach Tricia Cullop said. “Of any of the players I’ve ever coached, she’s probably the most improved player from the time we first met her to what she’s become. She’s going to continue to improve. She practiced with us getting ready to go to Israel, and she just continued to show signs of getting even better. She’s really developing her perimeter skills. There’s no doubt in my mind she’ll be a success. I’m very excited for her and very proud of her.”

Goodall

Cullop helped her decide where to play by connecting Goodall with her agent, Tom Cross, who helped narrow the decision down to a couple of teams.

“Anywhere would have been fine, but Spain was in my top two,” Goodall said. “When talking with Tom Cross, he said that Spain is a really good country to go to as a rookie. You get a lot of exposure and it’s a really good place to start off.

“You’re going to get a good experience and play competitive basketball. People are going to pay attention and you can move up from there. That was definitely a bonus. I had an offer in Germany and another offer in England, but theirs was a little bit better.”

The new team presents challenges for Goodall, such as playing in a Spanish-speaking country.

“I don’t know a whole lot of Spanish, but I’m hoping to get some of the basic phrases down by the time I have to leave,” she said. “Spanish to me is not that intimidating of a language to have to learn. I’ll be immersed in it, so I’m going to have to pick up on things kind of quickly.”

She is more concerned about the challenge of playing for a Spanish-speaking head coach.

“That will be a little bit of an adjustment,” Goodall said. “I know that she does speak some English, but preferably when she’s coaching she is speaking Spanish. I’ve heard from everybody who has played overseas that you have to have one or two teammates to turn to for a quick rundown of what the coach said. I’m going to have to do that.”

An easier challenge for Goodall will be adjusting to a different style of play in Spain.

“The nice thing about playing the variety of teams we’ve been able to play is she has had the opportunity to have some very diverse experiences,” Cullop said. “We’ve played everything from finesse teams to physical teams. She has gotten stronger along the way. She’s going to be asked as an American to go score. They’re paying her to be a scorer. The good thing is she can do that.”

The Rockets played physical teams such as Northwestern and finesse teams such as Bowling Green last season as Goodall earned third-team All-MAC honors. She led the Rockets with 6.9 rebounds per game and averaged 12.9 points, 1.1 assists, 1.1 blocks and 0.9 steals in 30.8 minutes per game.

“I definitely think I’m prepared from the different levels of competition and different styles I’ve been exposed to playing at Toledo,” Goodall said. “Our competition in our non-conference schedule increased a lot. Last year was a pretty tough schedule. With playing in the WNIT, that also exposed me to a little bit broader stroke of different styles of basketball. I’m prepared for whatever is thrown at me. Our coaching staff had the mindset to challenge us and not just have an easy schedule we could float on through.”

During Toledo’s postseason run in the WNIT, Goodall averaged 9.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. She scored 12 points with nine rebounds in her final game at Toledo as the Rockets beat USC 76-68 in the championship game.

Goodall has received advice on the style of play she will see overseas from UT senior guard Naama Shafir, who played for the Israeli national team in the European women’s championship.

“She has an idea of what it’s like to play for another country instead of your college team,” Goodall said. “I’ve been able to talk to a few people to get an idea. I’m just going to take it in as it comes, be as ready as possible when I leave and hopefully be successful over there as well.”

Goodall likely would have already signed with a team, but she was determined to join the Rockets on their trip to visit Shafir in Israel from Aug. 7 to 18. Goodall and classmate Jessica Williams had to maintain their amateur status to be allowed to make the trip.

“Everybody was so excited for it,” Goodall said. “When Coach Cullop said we were going to be able to go, there was never a doubt in my mind about going on the trip, no matter what it took.”

Williams headed to Hawaii this week to start her job as a graduate assistant at Hawaii Pacific University, and Cullop is not looking forward to her former players bragging about the weather this winter.

“Jay is going to be a graduate assistant at Hawaii Pacific, and Goody is going to such a terrible place, too,” Cullop joked. “It’s going to be awful when they call me and it’s snowing here and they say, ‘Coach, it’s sunny here.’ We always joke with recruits that it doesn’t snow in the gym.”

“I’m going to call and be like, ‘I went to the beach today,’ in the middle of February,” Goodall said. “I’ll see once I get over there if I miss winter or not. I’m excited to be living in the island life for a few months. I can’t complain about that.”

Santa Cruz is part of the Canary Islands and is about 130 miles off the northwest coast of Africa, so Goodall will be doing plenty of traveling to and from the mainland for games.

“I’m kind of an adventurous person,” Goodall said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing as much of Spain as possible. The Canary Islands is a little farther away than if I’d picked a city on the mainland. I’ll have time to do some traveling on my own, but I’m looking forward to playing all the different teams and visiting all the different cities through just the basketball aspect.”

Cullop visited an area close to Santa Cruz on a recruiting trip a few years ago.

“She and I talked about it,” Cullop said. “I’ve never been in the exact place she’s going to go, but I really enjoyed the brief time I was there. I think she is going to love it.”

While Goodall is excited to travel, she expects to miss her family and friends.

“I know that I will miss people, but luckily as part of my contract I do get one paid vacation with a round-trip ticket and everything,” she said. “I’ll be coming home for a week around Christmastime. I’m happy about that. With Skype and the Internet and all social media we have now, it won’t be too hard for me to keep in touch with people. I’m sure I’ll get a little lonely, but I’ll make a few friends I can hang out with.”

Goodall is tied for first in UT history with 131 games played, fourth with 83 blocked shots and 16th with 1,131 points scored, and she has no plans of slowing down in Spain.

“I want to keep my job, so in order to do that I have to produce,” she said. “I can’t just go over there and be a bum. I’m hoping to do at least as good as what I did my senior year. I’d like to average 15 points. I’ve been told that would be a good point for me to reach. I’m going into it expecting that I’m going to really enjoy it and want to be able to continue it. Maybe I’ll sign up for the same team, but if not I’ll play for another team the next year and do it for a few years down the road.”

Tags: Melissa Goodall, Rockets basketball, Spain, Tricia Cullop

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2011 at 2:39 pm and is filed under College sports, Rocket Basketball, Sports.
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