A Trip of a Lifetime!

Fifteen years ago this past summer, I was able to go on the trip of a lifetime.  I had just finished up my second year at the University of Georgia, and I was packing my bags to go on a trip to play in a basketball tournament in Israel and Palestine.  Since arriving at UGA, I had gotten involved in the Baptist Student Union.  I had met several friends and began playing basketball several nights a week at the Ramsey Student Center.  One of our campus ministers at the BSU found out that we had been playing and wanted to come and watch.  Before I knew it, he was organizing a team, he would be the coach and we would be traveling around the south playing in different club basketball tournaments.  We also were playing in the Intramural league at UGA and having a lot of success.  The only team that we couldn’t beat was the UGA football players.  It’s hard to keep Hines Ward in front of you when it felt like he was taking off from the 3 point line to dunk the ball over my head!

Playing on this club basketball team was a lot of fun.  Our campus minister/coach’s name was Franklin Scott.  At the time, not only did he work for the BSU, but he also was assistant chaplain for the football team, and ran the clock for the basketball program.  He was well connected at UGA and even had the luxury of allowing us to practice our club team in Stegeman Coliseum one night a week!  We had a blast!  This was a great group of guys and not too bad of basketball players either.  Franklin must have thought the same, because one practice he came to us with an idea.  He asked us if we would be interested in traveling to Israel and Palestine to participate in a basketball tournament and do some clinics for the kids in both places.

Before we could really realize how dangerous this might be, we were all saying yes and already trying to raise money to go!  I always say if I knew what I know about the region now, I might not have gone.  Luckily for us, 1999 was a time of relative peace in the region and other than a couple of instances, we felt very safe.

To say this was a trip of a lifetime would be an understatement.  It will be a trip that I never forget.  We boarded our flight from Atlanta not really knowing what to expect.  The flight seemed to take forever.  We had a short layover in London before we switched planes from Delta to Israeli Air.  The smaller plane from Atlanta to Tel-Aviv was small and comfortable until the Muslims on the plane began one of their daily prayers to Allah.  You have to remember, this was pre-911 so we just looked on with amazement and not fear as the Muslim passengers rocked back and forth, facing Mecca and praying aloud.  We did land peacefully in Tel-Aviv and then our real trip bagan.  

Our base hotel was located in Ramallah, Palestine.  Many who follow the news will know this as one of Yasir Arafat’s headquarters!  I’m pretty sure I’m glad I did not know that until after I had gotten back to the States.  I will tell you this.  The people in Ramallah treated us like royalty.  On arrival to this city, the people treated us very well.  Most of them knew that we were coming and were excited.  They thought that since we were a basketball team and were from America, then we must be NBA players!  We all tried to tell them that we weren’t, but that didn’t stop them from feeding us, giving us free ice creams, wanting our autographs and many other things that only most pro athletes get treated with.

We began our first day working at the local sports club.  Most of the sports clubs we visited had outdoor basketball courts.  Our first thing to do was to put on a basketball clinic for the kids.  As we began showing the kids the basics of basketball, the adults quickly got interested.  They went from standing on the sideline taking pictures of their kids, to jumping in the layup lines so they could learn about the beautiful game of basketball.  It was a lot of fun.  We traveled around Palestine and Israel doing the same thing many times.  We would put on a clinic and then would play their local team.  The organizers had created this as a tournament so sometimes the games got pretty competitive and heated.  It was a lot of fun as we played teams from cities such as Ramallah, Jerusalem and even Bethlehem.  We were one of two American teams in the tournament and as we ran through the foreign teams, it was obvious that we were going to run into the other American team in the final.  I wish I could say that we won the tournament, but the happy ending didn’t happen.  The team from California beat us pretty handily that day, but it wasn’t the game that I’ll remember, it was the celebration that we had afterwards of American young people, Israeli young people and Palestinian young people.  What a great time.  It ended with a huge feast and a lot of dancing.  No politics, no wars, no fighting.  Just a good time with humans from different backgrounds having a good time.  

Of course basketball wasn’t the only thing that we did on our trip.  We were able to go to many places around this region.  We visited all the tourist spots like the old city of Jerusalem.  We were able to go to Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity.  We were able to attend a Sunday church service at the garden tomb and were able to walk the Via Delarosa.  In the days before digital cameras, I still was able to take hundreds of pictures of the garden of Gethsemane, the Sea of Galilee and the location where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

I often look at all of the pictures that I took and reminisce about all the memories that I made.  I can remember my two roommates, Michael Bagwell (my best friend from UGA) and David Platt (who is now head of the International Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention) and the night as we dozed off to sleep being awakened by a machine gun going off outside our window.  We were young but we knew enough about the local conflict that we spent the rest of the night huddle under our beds!  It wasn’t until the next morning that we found out that it was just a drunk local running from the cops.  From what we found out this was a common occurance!

Another memory I can remembe was our van driver saying, ‘would everyone like to swim in the Dead Sea?’  After everyone emphatically saying yes, our guide led us on a 2 mile hike through the desert eventually arriving at the Dead Sea.  I can remember as we ran to cool off in the water, it wasn’t until after I jumped in that I realized I should not have shaved that morning because the salt seemed to find it’s way into every open pore that I had on my body!

So many memories from my trip to Israel that I can’t write them all in this article.  I reminisce and share them whenever possible.  It was a great trip.  One that I may never get to experience again.  I had such a great time.  I often think about that trip and I always smile.

Believe it or not, a lot of people do not like sports.  A lot of people think sports is just about gambling and getting together for a big pre-game party.  To me sports is so much more.  This trip is evidence that sports reaches across all different genders, races and nationalities.  The news would have you believe that all Israelis hate all Palestinians.  The news would have you believe that all Palestinians want all Americans demolished.  My trip proved to me that the nature of most people in this world are good.  Through the simple game of basketball, I saw with my own eyes how so called enemies competed with each other by bouncing a round ball.  How when the game was over, everyone shook hands, gave each other hugs and celebrated with a bottle of Coca-Cola and a feast of food.  My trip to the Middle East is one that I will never forget.  Of course I will never forget all the special places I was able to see, but most importantly I will never forget how humans came together for the love of sports.