Leaving Brazil

Author's note:  This post covers the day of July 6th.  I wrote it on the plane to Dusseldorf on July 8th.

Our last day in Brazil had an insanely early start.  I woke up at 3:15 AM to wake up the guys at 3:30.  We groggily made it to the bus, saying goodbye to many of the players we had competed with for the past week.  Fabio and Gabriel stayed behind in Brazil, as did the 6 Brazilian players of course.  And Gary stayed behind to catch his flight to Ecuador later in the day.  So with only 11 players and Neyda, we flew to Sao Paulo, where we bid goodbye to Anderson after mistakenly leaving the terminal.  He was staying with family in Sao Paulo.  After going back through security we caught our flight to Miami, but not before the trip had its one big stressful event.

Once we made it to our gate at 9:30 AM, I told the guys they could go get something to eat or look around the duty free shops, but they needed to be back by 10 for our 10:30 flight.  Well, 10 o’clock came and the plane started boarding but we were missing half of our 11 players.  We tracked most of them down quickly, but could not find Diego and Andres.  I was freaking out, storming through the terminal and in and out of duty free shops and airport news stands looking for them.  I had all but given up and was racing back to the gate to tell the gate agent that they needed to make a PA announcement, when I saw Diego walking my way.  They had returned to the gate and Martin sent him to go  find me.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget that guilty look on his face.  I didn’t need to yell at him.  I just asked him if Andres was at the gate too.  He said, “Yes”.  Then, after a long pause, “Sorry”. 

So, we all managed to make it on the plane in time for takeoff.  But the trip had one last surprise for us.  The plane hit some nasty turbulence.  Not the hard knocking shaking your tray table violently kind of turbulence, but the up and down rollercoaster kind.  It was definitely the most free fall moments I’ve had in  one flight.  Girls on the plane were screaming everytime our stomachs tried to lurch out our throats.  A few people around the guys threw up.  Thank God I wasn’t sitting near them.  I was in an aisle seat, next to an older man who was sitting by the window.  His wife and daughter were in the 2 seats in front of us.  Each time we went into free fall the wife and daughter looked back terrified.  One time they did that and he and I looked at each other and smiled.  I kept on watching my Harry Potter movie and ignored it pretty well.  I know that there’s an army of people like me standing behind each part of that airplane; designing it, testing it, maintaining it.  Planes are designed to handle those kinds of motions.  So I see it as: we paid for a flight, and got a carnival ride thrown in for free.

We got back to Miami around 7 in the evening.  I’ve never seen a plane full of people so desperate to get off the plane.  Most of them got out of their seats as soon as we landed.  The stewardesses had to get everyone to sit back down before they could taxi to the gate.  Customs was a breeze.  Our bags had already been offloaded and were waiting for us.  We walked out the secure area and found ourselves on American soil again.  Some of the families had driven to Miami to meet us.  Most of the guys were riding back with Joe Branch in a passenger van they had rented.  But Ruben and Neyda were picked up by their family, as was Alex Fethiere and MJ.

Joe drove me to my hotel, the same La Quinta I left my car at more than a week earlier.  I then accompanied them to 2 meals.  First at McDonald’s next to my hotel (I didn’t eat) and then to Panda Express.  I said my final goodbyes to players I had coached for the past 2 years and drove back to my hotel, while they began their drive to Gainesville.

I got back to my hotel and settled in to my awesome suite.  That’s right, I got a suite.  I guess by using my La Quinta points to pay for my room, they saw how many points I had and decided to upgrade me.  It was awesome.  I mean, it’s still La Quinta.  It’s not the Ritz.  But I did have a huge bedroom, and a huge living room, each with a tv.  And the best part was its location away from the other rooms with it’s own private entrance making for a much quieter stay.  Which was perfect, because I needed to SLEEP.

So, I think now would be a good time to list some final thoughts on Brazil that I hadn’t included before:

I’m not sure I like the language.  Too many different ways of pronunciation.  Too many letters with symbols that change the pronunciation.  Just when you think you can speak Spanish and they will understand you because of the similarity, some word is completely different.

They don’t like L’s.  ‘Peligro’ becomes ‘Perigo’.  ‘Playa’ becomes ‘Praia’.  And so on.

In Spanish, a ‘carniceria’ is a place you go to get ‘carne’, which is meat.  A ‘pasteleria’ is a place you go to get ‘pasteles’, which are desserts.  So, when I see signs in Brazil for a ‘borracharia’, given the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese, can I safely assume that this is a place I go to get ‘borracho’, which is drunk.  Apparently not, because a ‘borracharia’ is a place to get tires fixed, which seems to be a booming business in Brazil because they appear every few miles, whether you’re in the city or on the highway.  Maybe its because the roads are terrible.  Maybe noone can afford quality tires, so they’re forced to repair the old worn ones.  Probably a combination of the two.

The main lesson I want the guys to take from this trip to Brazil is how hard the players in the professional youth systems are working, but that there is nothing the Brazilians do that they can’t replicate here in the US.  If the guys take advantage of all the opportunities available to them, they can match those Brazilians in skill and athleticism.  They can lift weights with better equipment, train on nicer fields, run on better tracks, eat meals that are just as nutritious.  The difference is that without that system in place in the US, the kids have to take the initiative to plan all those activities themselves.  Noone here will demand when and what they eat, when they train, when they rest.  Instead, the kids have to have the discipline to do it themselves.  All the opportunities are here, you just have to be willing to work at it EVERY day, and not let any excuse prevent you from reaching your best.

If I think of anything else I’ll add it later.  For now, I’m tired.  I’ve written about three days in the past few hours.  I need to get some sleep before we arrive in Germany.  I’ll write about Miami tomorrow.