Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

What's up y'all?  This is DerMarr Johnson with another blog post. 

This time I'm going to tell you about my experience in Colombia.  I know, Colombia right?  Pablo Escobar.  It's not as scary as you think - well not everywhere at least.  I didn't see anything bad.

Well the name of my city is Bucaramanga, one of the bigger cities there.  Very safe and the people are nice.  My team was the Bucuros and the guys were pretty good.  The league was tougher than I expected.  Latin guys are pretty tough.  They aren't soft at all.

So..... Bucaramanga, Colombia!  The weather was great - shorts/t-shirts everyday.  I stayed in a hotel that was pretty nice. 

Had a jacuzzi in my room, HDTV, king bed and the location was great.  The mall was right across the street and stores were all around so my street was always busy.  There was a lot of stuff to look at.  I ate free at the hotel everyday too.  Chicken, fish and rice - you can also get good food all over the street by people cooking on their grill's on every corner.

I didn't have a lot of free time because we played like 4-5 games a week 5.  I played the entire game and they really played rough against me so I was tired a lot.  But what was great about this team that a lot of teams didn't always have is the doctor.  He was on call 24/7 and you could get a massage everyday - I mean a really good one.  That got me through all the games in a short time.

The playing aspect was great.  Most of my teammates were really unselfish, smart players who play hard and know the game.  I played very well and couldn't miss most of the time.  The guys loved me, the city loved me and the kids there still hit me on Facebook saying nice things to me.  I wish I knew more Spanish.

The experience in Colombia was overall great.  My 1st pro title win, the series went 7 games.  We won the 1st two very easy, then the next 3 games in Medellin they won.  Two of the games we had easy but the refs blatantly gave the game away so we had to win the last 2 games at home and we did.  When the clock hit 0.00 it felt like an NBA championship.  Our crowd was soooo loud the entire game.  The gym was packed, they sprayed us with champagne and fans ran to the floor.  It felt really great - something I will never forget and something they can't take away from any of us.

If I don't have a job around the same time next year, I would go back there.  I just wish they would make the season longer so we don't play so many games in a short period.  But my colombian experience was a great success.

Thanks for listening guys.  I will let you all know about my next experience.