Ballin' in Rio: Pro Basketball Life with TJ Benson (10/18/10)

What’s good everyone? It’s been about 10 days since I last sat down and talked with everyone about my life here in Rio. A good amount has happened recently, we’ve played three games and are now 3-2 overall. Last week, we smashed Iguacuo and Riacheulo by 60 and 22 points, respectively. I played well in both games but it’s hard to bring a serious effort when you know you’re going to win sometimes. The third game which we played last night was against Flamengo who is said to be the best team in South America. A few players on their squad that you guys might know are Rafael Araujo, former Toronto Raptor and BYU player, Marcelinho who played on the Brazilian National Team in the World Championships recently (he dropped 41 points on us by the way) and a fellow American named Kyle Lamonte who played at Southern Miss. This game was by far the most meaningful game I’ve been a part of while here in Brazil. We actually had a crowd of about 500 people (directed at you Steve Panos) too. Anyways, we ended up losing the game 109-101 which was considered a serious moral victory by everyone at Tijuca considering that Flamengo was favored by 30 points or so. Personally, I think we could beat Flamengo. They are definitely a very, very good team but we hurt ourselves with turnovers and gave up too big of runs to them. Individually, I played well scoring 17 pts to go along with 5 assists, 2 rebs and 2 stls on 6 of 12 shooting. On a side note, I’ve never had so many people be as happy as they were for our team after a loss. My manager, coach, kids from the younger teams, fans, etc. were congratulating me on only losing by eight. I understand that Flamengo is supposedly the best team in South America but it’s still a loss to me. Also, I picked up my first technical foul since my sophomore year in high school if I remember correctly and it was for simple throwing my hands up in the air. The ref called me for a foul when I didn’t touch the guy (literally) and he traveled prior to me “fouling” him.

Outside of basketball, I finally found some time to hit the beach even though it was cloudy outside again. I understand it’s considered spring time here but it seems like every day that we want to hit the beach, it rains or is cold. Regardless of the clouds, we made it out to Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Personally, I liked Ipanema better than Copacabana. The “layout” was much better. The attire on the beaches in Brazil is much different than the U.S. for both men and women. My roommate Bruno and friend Leo both were rocking Speedos, a piece of swimwear I will not be purchasing during my time spent here. The funny thing is they were making fun of me for what I was wearing which was your basic board shorts. Woman, good looking or bad looking, skinny or fat wore as little clothing as possible. As you can imagine, that is both good and bad on the eyes.
 

It’s been almost a month here in Brazil now and I’m slowly getting more and more adjusted each day. It has definitely been a roller coaster ride so to speak. Yes, I’m getting paid to play basketball in a foreign country experiencing another culture but it is definitely much more difficult than people realize. Being alone in a country where you don’t speak the language and can’t really relate to anyone is tough at times. It helps being able to talk to people in the U.S. so if anyone ever wants to skype, hit me up tjbenson15. Anyways, enough of my sob story there, we got a big game coming up on Monday against Macae who we lost to our first game of the season. I expect to beat them this time around since our team as well as myself were not 100% last time. If we win this game, we essentially lock up 2nd place in the State League. Before I sign off, I’d like to say I officially hate the word “Americano.” My roommates have abused the word to the point where I want to slit my wrists. They start singing it in a song and it drives me insane. Therefore, I will not be referring to myself as “The Americano” anymore. Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys the weekend and enjoys my blog. I’m out. Llllate.

T.J. Benson