November 28, 2011

Diary Series: Jeff Tungate, Assoc. Head Coach - Oakland ('An inside look at life on the road')

There are many things that happen throughout the course of a season that help develop chemistry on a basketball team.  However, at Oakland, we believe the best way to develop character, toughness, and chemistry is through adversity.  Coach Greg Kampe has always tried to schedule the toughest competition in the country and put our players in tough situations and environments to help prepare for our conference season.  We just finished one of those situations.  We played four games over a 10-day period - without returning home.  With games at Alabama, Arkansas, Grambling State, and Houston you find out real quick what your team is made of, and so far, we like what we see from our team.

Spending 10 days on the road as a team brings about many challenges.  Do you get along with your roommate on the road for 10 days, can you survive not sleeping in your own bed for 10 days, can you adjust to hostile environments, how do you handle the challenge of keeping up with your class work while on the road, and can you improve your game without being able to get into your own gym, on your own time, and work on your skills?  Despite all these questions, 10 days on the road make our four-day road trips during conference play seem extremely short.

Many interesting things happen on every road trip.  There are three things that really stand out from this trip that I would like to share with everybody reading this article.

1. One of the funniest things that happened on our road trip was watching Coach Kampe walk through the drive through at McDonald’s.  We arrived in Houston around 12:30am and our players were hungry.  We pulled into a McDonald’s, but the only thing open was the drive through.  Since the bus would not fit, Coach Kampe decided to take everyone’s order and walk through the drive through.  To see a Head Division I Coach walking through a drive through was priceless.
2. Touring some of the most historic and successful football facilities in the country.  We took our team on a tour of the football stadiums at the University of Alabama and the University of Arkansas.  Then, to see one of the most historic football stadiums in the country at Grambling State University is something we will never forget.  It was also nice to see Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams sitting in the front row of our game at Grambling.  Not to mention, finishing the trip by driving by the football stadium of undefeated Houston will provide memories that last a lifetime for our team.
3. Finishing the trip with a win at Houston.  After 10 days on the road, playing some of the best teams in the country, you never know how your team will respond.  Watching the effort our kids put forth on day 10 against a very good Houston team gives us a lot of positive things to build on going forward.  Many teams would be looking forward to getting home, but our kids showed up and played extremely hard against a very well coached and talented Houston program.  What made it even more special was to see a large group of Oakland alums from the Houston area sitting behind our bench wearing their Golden Grizzly t-shirts.  It’s nice to know we have that kind of support that far away from home.  It was a great way to end the trip.

Special praise goes to our Director of Basketball Operations Sarah Judd, our Video Coordinator James Hellekjaer, and our manager Matt Stachelski.  There are so many things that need to happen for a successful road trip (like laundry, practice times, meal times, travel arrangements, etc.), I would be remiss not to mention these three people.  Their hard work and attention to detail allowed us to worry about one thing – coaching our basketball team.  They did a phenomenal job and deserve a lot of credit.

Hope you enjoyed this look inside our recent road trip.

Go Grizzlies,

Jeff Tungate