Bridgesport Diplomacy

Howdy!

Here's an update on basketball.

So at our Welcome Back BBQ on campus at the beginning of the semester, they had a sign up sheet for this program called BridgeSport, which would give interested students the chance to teach Italian kids how to play basketball.  It looked cool, so I wrote my name and e-mail down and attended the first meeting.

BridgeSport is an organization that was founded last year at the American University of Rome by a study abroad student.  According to the mission statement, Bridgesport "is revolutionizing diplomacy and cultural exchange experiences by sending top college students studying abroad, into local communities to teach youth ages 8-13 sports while advancing their experiences and knowledge of American culture." More details on their Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/Bridgesport , and here's their official website: http://www.bridgesport.org/#1 

The organization's goal is to bridge the gap of cultures using sports (hence, BridgeSport).  The kids don't speak much English, and we don't speak much Italian, but we're united by the common bond of basketball.  In our orientation meeting, our advisor spoke of Richard Nixon's "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" where professionals of the sport in China and the U.S. played to enhance diplomacy, which on a much smaller scale, is what we're doing.  See here for more on Ping-Pong Diplomacy:  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_Pong_Diplomacy 

So far, we've had three sessions.  The first was just an orientation session, and the last two have been official meetings.  We meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6, but I can only attend the first hour of each session as I have class at 5:15.  At the orientation meeting, we had one kid show up to play with us.  At the second, we had two kids, and yesterday we had over 10.  If we continue at this rate, we'll be at over 100 kids by the end of the semester.   

We usually just play knockout or some pick up games.  Yesterday I had the chance to teach one of the kids, David, how to slide his feet while on defense.  It's been really fun so far, and I look forward to doing it for the the rest of the time that I'm here.  


This weekend, I have an excursion planned, which I'll be back with information about on Sunday or Monday.  

JC