Friday, November 2, 2007

Team USA?


So, I have a friend in some of my classes here a Jerusalem University College who used to play basketball for Arizona state. He went on a basketball ministry trip to the Middle East and some scouts from the PBF (Palestinian Basketball Federation) offered him a contract. He took it, so he is a professional basketball player for a team out of Bethlehem in the West Bank.

Well, every year Palestine gathers the best players from the PBF to play for their national team against other Middle Eastern countries. So this Palestinian national team organized a game against the Americans from the league. My friend said they didn't have enough players, and since I was an American I could play. So one night I crossed the security wall, went into Bethlehem, made my way to the nicest gym in Palestine, and played for Team USA against the Palestinian national team. It was absolutely ridiculous. We won.


This story sounds really good the way it stands, so I don't think I will go into detail about the quality of basketball in the PBF or the seriousness of the game (evident in our lack of uniforms and numbers). I think I'll probably tell this story the rest of my life without going into those annoying details.

1 comment:

Annalise said...

ewww. you guys are sweaty! jon, this is an amazing story. nevermind those trivial details. way to represent.