Pura Vida!!

Hola from beautiful Costa Rica! Sorry for the delay in posts, but it has been a busy few days for the Falcons!

Day 1: We arrived in Costa Rica after an early morning flight. Upon arrival, we were met our our Sports Tours guide Emily and our local guide Melody. They have been with us everyday and teaching us all about the culture of Costa Rica. After a quick lunch we had our first practice at Liceo, a boys high school in downtown San Jose. For dinner, we went to a local restaurant where we had dinner and watched the Costa Rica vs. Honduras soccer game. It's basically the equivalent to the Super Bowl in America...it's a big rivalry and the whole country shuts down for the game!



Day 2: The morning was relaxing with some pool time. The mornings are beautiful here. Mid morning, Melody picked us up for our tour of downtown San Jose. We learned alot about the cost of living here and the culture of the city. We saw the President's house (he is currently quarentined due to the swine flu!). It is a basic house that he has lived in his whole life. Security consisted of a camera, one man by the front gate, and two cops reading the paper in a car across the street! Not exactly the White House! We also saw a beautiful Catholic church in the city and their famous theater. We then had some time to shop in the market before heading to our pre game meal. We headed back to Liceo to play...it was an amazing experience. The gym is the oldest and first gym for basketball in the country. International rules are a little different but everyone adjusted and played well.

Day 3: Today was fantastic! We took the bus towards the Caribean side of the country for our white water rafting excursion on the Pacurae River. It started with a breakfast Costa Rican style (ie. rice and beans) at the base camp. Then we took a bus with our guide Danny till the bus could go no further. After a 15 min hike straight downhill...in the middle of nowhere...in the pouring rain...we made it to our rafts in the river. The scenery was amazing. There were waterfalls everywhere and neon blue butterflies and toucans in the trees. We all learned the commands for paddling, stopping, turning, and the most important command "Get Down" from our guides and then we were on our way. When Tara and Tracy fell out of the boat on the first set of Class 1 rapids, we knew we were in for a long day!! However, after their rescue they rallied and made it through the Class 4 and 5 rapids. It was a great day of team work and adventure. Only one coach fell into the river (Kevin), but I promised not to tell anyone. :)

We made it home then headed to a traditional Costa Rican dinner. The restaurant was on the side of a mountain overlooking the city. It was a beautiful view. After dinner, traditionaly Costa Rican dancers performed and even brought some members of the team onto the dance floor to show off their skills!

Day 4: Today we took a trip over to Jaco Beach. It was a day to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Pacific coast. The water was warm and we all enjoyed swimming and laying in the sun for awhile. We then had a great lunch on the beach, did some shopping, and more swimming. It's only been 4 days and we have already done and seen so much!! We have much more to experience! Everyone is having a great time! For more details and more pictures, the super amazing Mike Cihon is blogging daily on the main webpage at : www.bgsufalcons.com

Enjoy! Now off to bed...two games tomorrow!!

Go Falcons!!

Coach Poole :)

Falcon Update

Team with Strength Coaching Staff
Team Flash Dance (the winners!) and the Gator!

Seniors...lookin tough

Juniors

Freshies...Members of Team Replacements and Team Indians

Hello Falcon Fans!

Sorry for the delay in blogs, but the coaching staff has had a busy month, while the players were here working hard in the weight room and classroom.

After 20 days on the road, hundreds of games, 5,000 miles, 25 cities, 2 bouts of pink eye, very little sleep and/or exercise, and one fender bender, we have all made it back to our own beds happily! However, we came home only to jump right into practice for the foreign tour!!

Practices have been great!! The upperclassmen are definitely working hard, hustling, making shots, communicating, and most importantly, having enthusiasm for each other! It has been fantastic to be back on the court with the team, even though Anderson gets a bit warm in August (we are used to seeing the snow drifts outside the doors and not having them open!! Can't wait for the new Stroh Center!!)

Also, last night the entire team had their annual summer's end Strong Woman competition. One of the players will blog in more detail later, but basically they are divided into 3 teams. The teams must have a theme and come ready to compete!! They compete in six different events designed by Coach Hillman, including bench press, stadium stairs, and pushing a tractor across the football field! Stay posted for a video coming soon of this quite entertaining, though tough event! I will say that surprisingly Team Flashdance dominated the Strong Woman competition and gets bragging rights for the next year! (They had 3 seniors so I think they had a little advantage!!)

Our countdown stands at 4 days for our Costa Rica departure!! We will be pulling out of Anderson Arena at 3:30 am (yes, am!) for the Detroit airport on Wednesday morning. Stay tuned for updates from San Jose...our first destination!

Roll Along!!

Coach Poole

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Coach Roos!!! Glad you get to be home and not on the road to celebrate!

SAVE THE DATE!

Hello Falcon Fans!

Great news! We have officially set the date for our annual Golf Outing. It will be held on Sunday, September 20th. We are glad to have it on a weekend so as to avoid work conflicts this year. It will be held at the Bowling Green Country Club and we will hold a morning and an afternoon session. It will be a great day to spend on the course with the coaching staff and meet the newest members of the 2009-2010 Women's Basketball Team. Please mark your calendars. Registration information will be sent in early August.

Roll Along!
Coach Miller

Summer Scavenger Hunt

A couple months ago I decided that our team needed some sort of creative team activity. More than a few ideas crossed my mind, some more ambitious than others, but finally I came upon the idea to do a team scavenger hunt. With continued contemplation over these past few months, I finally planned out exactly how I wanted to do it. I split up the whole team into three smaller teams, with each team being headed by one of the captains (Clapper, Tara and Maggie) and rounded out by at least one freshman with everyone else filling in the gaps. Once teams were split up, I gave them a little packet of papers which laid out both the rules to the game and the lists of tasks they could complete. Each task was worth a certain amount of points and many of which contained bonuses and the ability to do it more than one time.

Beforehand, I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous about how it was going to play out, but it turned out to be a blast. Everyone was so much more competitive than I thought they were going to be! Since I made up the scavenger hunt, I didn’t think it was fair to be on a certain team, so every half hour I moved to another team. Seeing everyone set out strategies and then eventually seeing them complete their tasks was an absolute joy. I might have actually had more fun than they did!

After the scavenger hunt, we all reconvened at the house where a bunch of the girls live and had lunch – tacos! J After lunch, Clapper even set up a little arts and crafts activity for us. We all got to decorate wooden letters – the letters being the first letter of our names. Eventually they’re all going into the locker room. After it was all said and done, I think the whole day turned out to be a huge success. Not only did everyone have some fun, but we grew a little closer in the process too. The championship locker room has already begun!

Enjoy the video!! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=106509180685

--Jess Slagle

On the Road Again...Just Can't Wait to Get on the Road Again...

Hey Falcon Fans!

It’s finally July and that means Recruiting, Recruiting, Recruiting!! It is the lifeline of our program and luckily I am surrounded by a staff that loves to recruit! For the next 10 days, my staff and I will be criss-crossing the country watching some great basketball. We then come home for 6 days, then head back out for another 10 days to end the month of July.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer. Stay tuned for upcoming details on our annual Golf Outing!!

Roll Along!
Coach Miller

The Freshies First Week in BG

From L-R: Jessie Tammerlano, Chrissy Steffen, Simone Eli, Allison Papenfus

It was a hot, summer, June morning when Jess, Allison, Chrissy and I arrived on campus just prior to Freshman Orientation. After meeting with the coaching staff, the four of us, parents included, headed over to begin what we found out to be a 12 hour day of BGSU. As orientation strolled along, we continued to find some ridiculously dumb things, quite funny, while we tried to entertain each other through such a long day and process. While sitting in the “Housing” Meeting . . . Jess, Chrissy, Allison, and I received a text message from Coach Eckert. It consisted of. . “Hey fresh meat, your new shoes are in your locker, as well as BG T-shirts, and shorts. Remember no complaining about sizes, Coach Miller cannot stand when girls complain.” So, as the four of us sit in the back of the meeting, which was filled with no less than 400 people, we decided, well, hey. . Why not go try on our new stuff. . I will admit it was I who influenced all three to do so. So, we ducked our heads and hurried out of the meeting, hoping to go unnoticed by the mass of people. . However, we soon found it was not the mass of people we need to be worried about. We rushed into the coaches’ office wanting to get the password to our new locker room, but as anxious as we were, it wasn’t before long when we found out it probably wasn’t a good idea to skip out on an O-Reg meeting. So while the four of us are begging to be told the password, Coach Poole pops her head into the door and says. . “Shouldn’t you four be in the housing meeting?” Of course our reaction was to blame it on Coach Eckert because, well, it was his fault. So after checking out our new gear, we returned to the meeting, with optimism of not being reprimanded for leaving. We eventually found that Coach Miller had posted on Twitter. . “The freshmen are on campus and have been the first group to skip an O-Reg meeting, seems like this group is going to be a handful.” As comical as that may come across, the four of us were still VERY worried.

Anyway, after a very interesting first day. . . “move-in” day rolled around, and we were all PUMPED to get things started. As stressful as it was, move-in was great, as well. Chrissy and I share a dorm room, with Allison and Jess right across the hall. Right off the bat, we met lots of new people on Main Street and got a taste of the college life for the first time. Saturday afternoon we met with the team, for some “BKB” bonding. Slagle had made us a scavenger hunt that was equipped with things like: finding someone to let us take a picture of his feet, ordering McDonalds in a British accent, doing a 1 minute dance, and other things of that crazy nature. With Jess and I’s team winning, the four of us quickly discovered that the girls on the team are probably made up of some of the FUNNIEST people anyone could meet. But the fun was over for now, as we were welcomed Monday morning, at 6:30 AM, to weight lifting. The four of us could hardly open our eyes to make our way over to Sebo, but we did so. We soon met Adam, who really tested how thick our skin was, the moment we walked in. Aside from the immediate pain of the warm-up, alone . . . we finished workout day 1, with the certainty in knowing that it was going to be a great next 4 years. We have now been on campus for a week, going to class, weight lifting, playing pickup, as well as enjoying the new friendships we’ve all made. Overall, so far, Jess, Allison, Chrissy and I have had the times of our lives getting to know BG and its people in the short time we’ve been here. We look forward to representing Bowling Green Women’s Basketball program in the tradition they’ve built over the past years, on and off the court.

-Simone Eli