NCDS: Jeff Tungate, Assoc. Head Coach - Oakland (Thanksgiving)

By: Jeff Tungate, Assoc. Head Coach - Oakland (Entry No. 2)

Thanksgiving is always a special time of year.  As a basketball coach or player, seldom do you get to spend time with your family on Thanksgiving.  You are often travelling to a holiday tournament or practicing for an upcoming opponent.  This season, our schedule allowed our players, coaches, and staff the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families.  A few of our players like Ledrick Eackles (Louisiana), Will Hudson (Wisconsin), and Ilija Milutinovic (Serbia) did not have the time to travel home.  They were invited to spend their Thanksgiving at the home of Coach Kampe.  It's moments like these that make athletics so special.  Teams truly do become families.  Knowing that they were not alone on Thanksgiving was very important to our program.  We want a family atmosphere in our program and try hard to treat our players like we would our own children.

I have always been thankful for my family, our health, and our players.  This year I am also thankful for having the opportunity to coach.  I will be undergoing emergency back surgery and will be away from our team for 4-6 weeks.  This has allowed me the chance to reflect and realize that I have coached for so long that I have taken that opportunity for granted.  Being away from our team will be very difficult.  I am thankful God has given me the opportunity to be a coach.  During my time away, I plan on working hard at becoming an even better coach.  Never again will I take coaching for granted. 

There are four things in my life that I need:

 1.  My Faith

 2.  My Family 

 3.  My health

 4.  Our team

I hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Go Grizzlies!

(All of us at College Chalktalk would like to wish Jeff the best of luck and a speedy recovery from his surgery.)