G'Day, my ass!!!

Okay, so this is my fourth trip to Australia, right? And I am not bad mouthing the people there so don't get me wrong. They greet everyone with a smile and a cordial, "G'Day." But on this particular day, it seemed like the whole damn country was against us. Now I know that we are Allies on the whole "War on Terrorism" thing, but after today I don't know. I wonder sometimes if they really like us. Everyone wants to win and these guys seem to want it more than anyone.

So we arrive into Sydney and after all the hustle and bustle of tying the ship up and hooking up the pier services dies down, an Australian Officer comes to the ship inviting all to participate in the soccer and basketball tourneys that they were putting on. So I, being the basketball coach onboard, am called up to meet her and discuss such things as date, time, and place, etc. All the while I am thinking that we, even though most of them haven't played in a few months, are just going to run through 'em like John Holmes in a 70's porno. So she continues to give me the minor details as I am looking at her up and down as if it didn't matter.



The Day of the Tourney

So as I am standing outside the boat trying to muster up all who claimed that they wanted to be in the tournament, I realized that we have been out to sea for two weeks. Right then I noticed that we are going to probably have about half of the 15 promised to show up. Most would be in their hotels rooms passed out drunk from the night before. Fast forward to the start of the game and I am counting 8 out of the 20 that signed up. So here I am stuck with only two people from the original team that took second place overall at Pearl Harbor. Only those two have had significant time playing together. Nevertheless I was certain that we would still take these cats due to our superior coordination and athleticism. Some of the teams were intergrated with females, old fat out of shape guys, and just plain ol' busters. It seemed like we would walk through with no problem.

Well, my first clue that something was going to go wrong was when the referees that were present informed us that they knew little to nothing about officiating a basketball game. It was pretty obvious by their appearance anyway. I'd say that they were better suited at calling a dodgeball game or a Monopoly Tournament. I brush it off and get my guys in a crip line to practice layups. With good defense, I was sure that layups would be a significant part of our game.

The rules sucked. The first three games in this round robin tourney ran under a continuous 10 minute clock. Yep, the game lasted 10 minutes exactly, regardless of fouls, change of possession, free throws, substitutions...you get the idea. Only the semifinals and the Championship game would be two 10 minute halves with a 2 minute intermission in between. Lastly, the standings were like those in a hockey season. You are placed by Points For and Points Against. There's nothing wrong with that as long as we didn't lose, but they didn't tell us it was going to be like that until the third game. I think it came to us sorta like this, "You guys know that the more points you win by, the better off you are, don't ya?" I'm like, "Thanks for tellin' us now, Mate!" If I would have known that some of the cats on my bench would have never played. There were also no timeouts, and to substitute players you had to either signal the refs or change lineups like they do in hockey, on the fly. I was totally lost for a moment but, once again, if I was told this then this wouldn't have been a problem. There were only six teams but the whole tournament would eventually last almost six hours!! By the way, of the two American ships in Sydney at that time, we were the only one to enter this prestigious tournament.

As we are observing the first team we are about to play during the shoot around, we noticed that they had a guy that was at least 6'7" and uncoordinated as hell. Have you ever played Madden Football on any video game console and noticed how the players ran when they were returning to the huddle? Well I think that he was the poor guy that they decided to motion capture. It was funny as hell to me because I always thought that to move like that was physically impossible. You could slide a two comic books under his vertical. I swear that he couldn't hop on the curb if he had to. Moving on...

So my team is draggin' ass for the first five minutes, as expected. I was calling each one of those bastards everything but a child of God. Finally they turned up the defensive intensity the last 4 minutes of the game. Skippy, the Australian 6'7" Center, had about 8 points and 80 rebounds but we won handedly. Safe to say, he won't make the National Team.

Fast forward to the Semifinal matchup and we are going against a team that we have already beaten. We start out playing well and quickly got off to a sizable lead until suddenly, as if they all had previously talked it over, they stop playing defense again. All day the Aussies had been driving the lane against us and I am certain that if I had rice paper it would've held up better. I looked down the court on one occasion and saw my center draped in a matador outfit complete with beret and the traditional red cape. Every now and then a very faint, "Ole" could be heard from underneath the basket. Somehow we escaped that game by one point. The officiating was horrible, and very one sided. One referee under our opponent's goal was blowing his whistle with reckless abandon, while the referee under our basket had his whistle, as well as his head, stuck up his ass. They were beating the hell out of my guys and not getting any calls, yet the slightest touch on them and they were heading to the free throw line. I was stewing and yelling until I almost lost my voice, but to no avail.

What I did notice was that when we were playing any of the five Aussie teams, the gym would erupt everytime an Australian made a basket. I mean it would make you shyt your pants if you weren't prepared for it.

As we waited to start the Championship Game, I am standing in the lobby looking at the Championship Plaque. It consists of the names of all the previous Australian Armed Forces Units who finished first in the tournament throughout the years. Then it hit me. No American Units inscribed on the plaque anywhere!! Were we the first to ever enter this tournament or were the others cheated out of it just like they were trying to do to us???

My moment of clarity didn't truly arrive until right before the buzzer to start the game. I looked over to our opponent's bench and I noticed the best players from just about each of the five teams, some that we had beaten convincingly, were suiting up to play against us. What offended me was the fact that they weren't trying to hide it. They were switching jerseys on the bench right next to me! I looked to the lady running the tournament and I asked her for an explanation.

"We're just trying to make it fair. This is the Championship game. You boys still should win though."
I tell her in a nice way, "Ummmm...this is bullshyt!! You wait until the final game? My boys are tired. We have been underway and no one has really ran since October and you tell me that you are trying to make it fair?"
I wait for an answer. We stare at each other for about thirty seconds. She blinks. I walk away.

I go over to tell the guys what is painfully obvious to all of us already.
THEY AREN'T GOING TO LET US WIN THIS TOURNAMENT!!
They all contend that it doesn't matter who they put on the floor. We came this far and we are going to get our name inscribed on that damn plaque out front. I tell them, "Just don't let this game fall into the referee's hands. If you do then it's over." I go back to the bench and was aware that the referees weren't the same awful people that started the game. No, it's far worse. The officiating crew is comprised to two members from a team that we had beaten earlier. I look again at the tourney director. We stare at each other for ten seconds. All of her pieces are in play. Whenever my guys hit the court it's five on seven right off the bat.

Once again the calls are one sided. Somehow we manage to get to halftime with a 6-1 lead. I know, we only scored six points in 10 minutes! The overall score was a testament to our defense, which we must have received in the mail after the semifinal game. Those guys played their asses off the first ten minutes of that game. Then the bottom dropped out.



During the second half, a female ref who couldn't play very well herself, calls "Carry" when my guy does a hesitation dribble. I don't know if that made it over to this side of the pond or not but the move was definitely legal. I look at the score and it is locked up 12-12. The clock is continually going. One of my guys drives to the lane and he gets raped. No call. One of their guys takes the ball to the basket and my center breathes on him. Foul!!! My 2 guard goes to the rack and I witness the most fiendish clothesline ever seen on RAW!!! No call. Then for the next couple of minutes my guys forget how to defend. I look down there only to find that three of the five guys are now wearing the matador uniforms. The bulls, that are the Australian players, are finishing layups at will. I begin to cry. It's slipping away.

10 seconds on the clock, the score is 17-17. We inbound the ball down court to our power forward who gets body blocked. He stumbles and they call "Travel." I look over at the ref and she just dismisses my penetrating stare. We get a turnover and head back down court only to rush a shot that would have put us ahead by two points. After the Aussies rebound the ball they are pushing it up racing against time. Surprisingly all of my guys get back and set up on defense. Every pass is contested, every man covered. One of the Aussie guards drives to the free throw line where he is met by my man from Houston. They both go up. My guy goes up a little higher, naturally, and blocks the shot clean. A whistle blows. I look to the referee at mid court and realized that she didn't blow the whistle. To my dismay and utter disappointment, the call comes from underneath the basket. I lose it. I'm livid at this point. I start yelling like I was Rollie Massimino, the old Villanova coach. Bobby Knight would've been proud.

"How can you make that call? You are not in position to make that call. The block was clean and because of where you were standing, ole girl should have had the call!!!! Your f*ckin jersey is too f*ckin' tight, you fat sonuvabitch!!!!" Okay, I didn't say the last part but I was thinking it. He ignores me, the gym goes crazy and with no time on the clock, the score tied 17-17, the Aussies get the two foul shots. Sink one and the game is over. He makes the first one and our hearts drop.

"But they cheated!" "This is bullshyt!" "It's not fair!"
That was all that could be heard coming from my group as they walked off the court in dismay.

Yes, they did cheat. It was painfully obvious that there was no way that they were going to put an American Navy Ship's name on a Plaque laden with Australian Military commands on the front. It was already written. The only thing that stuck out in my mind were those words that I preached to my guys right before they took the court. "Don't leave the game in the referee's hands." They did, and what I feared would happen came to pass. The players from the team that "won" couldn't even look us in the eye as we walked off the court. They knew what was going on and I am sure their victory was that much more bittersweet.

I have never been to the Olympics, but I now know a glimpse of the feeling those people get. Yeah, I know, it was only one country we were up against but damn!!! It was just me and my boys and only two people to cheer us on, against what felt like the entire country of Australia. I witnessed a team cheer for the team that kicked thme out of the semifinals while they were playing us. I am not lying when I say that every time a point was scored that the gym roared in celebration.

The irony of it all is that our Secretary of State, the Honorable Condeleeza Rice, was in town to promote diplomatic unity between the US and Australia. I wonder what she would have thought if she would have visited our ship a day earlier and caught the game? "Sever all ties with these bastards now. Jim, start the car", is probably what she would've echoed and I would have been all for it. But hers is another story...