Euro Cup Qualifier aka BIG BIG BIG GAME!

Wednesday night was the big game for Travis and his team. They played against Greek team, Aris, for the Euro Cup qualifiers. Euro Cup is the 3rd best league in the world after the NBA and the Euroleague, so this game was huge for him. Unfortunately his team lost by four points here in the capital, Sofia, but they still have another chance to qualify. They will play Aris, again, in Greece this Wednesday night. This means that they MUST win this game by at least 5 points to win the qualifier. If they lose or win by less than 5 they will play in the next league down called, Euro Challenge, so this is probably the most important game of Travis' career so far. 



I drove to the game with the other "basketball wags," another wife and girlfriend. One of the girls, Eva, is from Greece, her boyfriend is a Bulgarian on the team and she's a former pro Greek volleyball player, so we have volleyball in common.  She's athletic, nice, pretty, tall and has a good sense of humor just like most of my friends back home do.  The only difference is that she has this crazy Greek accent that makes it hard for me to understand her 1/3 of the time.  This makes conversations slightly difficult at times.  For instance, one time she asked me if the guys were going to shower after a game, but pronounced it 'sour' instead of with the 'sh'.  I spent the next five minutes confused saying, "What? Sour? HUh? What are you talking about? What's sour? Huh?" until I finally understood what she was trying to say and then we both laughed hysterically for 5 more minutes.  So despite the language differences we have become friends within the past few weeks, we work out together, play tennis and go get coffee quite frequently together.  Eva looks like a typical "balkan" girl, but she's much prettier and there's something very statuesque about her maybe it's a Greek thing.  She has long straight black hair with bangs and could probably be a model.  To the game she's wearing blue shiny athletic pants with a matching jacket and white tennis shoes.  She comments that I look "verrdy bootivul" and that she looks like "a villager" as she calls it, in her athletic clothes. 

The other girl, Tiffani, is an American whose husband is from Latvia and went to UNLV for college ball.  She's a very beautiful girl, shorter in height with long, brown hair that she has perfectly curled.  This is only the 3rd time I've met her, but I know she will be dressed to the nines.  She designs all her own clothes and owns a clothing boutique in Latvia.  Therefore, she is extremely fashionable, wearing a tailored black blazer, a cute dress with black leggings and boots that look like they came out of Kim Kardashian's closet.  Knowing she will be dressed up I decide I should look cute as well.  I normally like to look nice for Trav's games, but tonight is a BIG game, so I decide to step it up a notch.  It's not uncommon for Bulgarian women to be very dressed up in the city and I figure we're in the big leagues now and I want to look extra nice for the crowd.  Last season in the small town of Samokov, everyone knew I was Travis's wife and I got A LOT of stares in town and at the games, not to mention that I stand out a lot just for the fact that I have blonde hair.  So, knowing that I will get a lot of stares at games, gives me the motivation to look nice.  It is a little different this season, people know I am probably a wife of a player (because I look foreign), but most people in the city probably could care less whose wife I am unless they are a really big fan of the team.   So anyways, I curl my hair, wear my black skinny jeans, tank, cropped jacket and my black high heeled shoe booties and I'm ready to go.   





We show up to he gym dressed to impress and when we arrived we were invited up to the "VIP" lounge where we were served glasses of red wine on the upper tier of the basketball arena (oohh la la, aren't we just so sophisticated).  Now, this whole "VIP" treatment is a first for me.  Trav's team last season didn't really do the whole vip thing, so I felt pretty special and almost a little out of place up there, but hey I can roll with it.  I don't mind getting the VIP treatment once in a while.  The three of us girls sit down and sip our wine and we giggle about how everyone is probably wondering who the heck we are.  



Now just to clarify... the arena isn't anything compared to an arena you would see in the U.S., it's holds approximately 3,000 people and is one of the oldest gyms I've ever seen a professional team play in. The stands were probably 3/4 full, which is a small crowd and surprising for such a big international game, but for some reason Lukoil has a very very small fan base even though they are the best team in the country.  I'm not sure why Lukoil has such a small fan base, they have won the national title for the past 10 years or something ridiculous like that, but still, very little fan base.  Travis' team last year had way more die hard fans than Lukoil and they were a lot lower level of a team and they have definitely never won the national title.  It was a very different atmosphere than I'm used to.  Last season there were incidences of fans throwing coins and plastic bottles at the opposing team, this game, the fans (if you can call them fans) just seem like they are simply there to watch and just cheer occasionally.   The Aris fans filled up one small section, but made more noise than the rest of the arena who was there to see Lukoil....pretty sad.  It wasn't uncomfortable, just a little disheartening that not more people were REALLY excited about this huge international game, but it just made me want to cheer harder for them myself.  



After sipping on our glasses of wine we were told that we had seats saved for us by the manager of the team, courtside, right behind the team's bench. We weren't exactly sure how to get down to this area so we asked one of the waiter's if he could show us, but he didn't speak English. So we asked another waiter and he tried to think of where we could go, but didn't know (grrr). Sometimes the whole communication problem thing can get frustrating.  I wish I knew more Bulgarian...but I don't.  Finally, we asked a third man who spoke good English and he took us out the door, down the stairs all while in high heels only to be led to nowhere and he told us he didn't know either (double grrr). So I told the girls I could figure it out. We walked down two flights of stairs, past the players locker room until finally I found the entrance to the court where we had to walk past security and over the media stand to get to our seats, but we made it to our wonderful court-side, right in the action, sweat in our face, directly behind the bench seats...niiice (perks of being a wag)!



The game started off good, Travis was the first to score with a nice hook shot. They started playing well, but as the 2nd half continued they lost their mojo. We just continued to cheer all the same.  One of the girls wasn't happy about the game and personal playing time, which is always a touchy subject, but I guess that's just part of the game sometimes.  Our husbands all have different experience levels playing basketball and we all come from different walks of life so sometimes in this respect it's difficult for us all to relate.  We were all bummed and probably just as upset as our husbands were about the loss.  After the game we waited for our hubbies, talked for a few minutes and then decided to go to dinner in Sofia with Tiffani and her husband.  Last year if Trav's team had lost a game he would NEVER have been allowed to just take off with me and go eat.  He would have had to go straight home on the bus with the rest of the team, so this was a nice for a change.    



We ended up at this delicious Italian restaurant so it ended up being an alright night. We sipped on wine and ate delicious pizza and linguine with salmon (mmmmmYummy).  This situation was SO much different than last season where we would have gone home and went straight to the awful East West restaurant where we would eat mediocre Bulgaria food after every game and every practice.  It got very boring and very repetetive.  We were also delighted because finding really good italian food is pretty uncommon in BG. So anyways we ended up enjoying the rest of the night, despite the loss. Hopefully things will all be better when they play in Greece next week!!! I can't wait to find out!

What's a "WAG?"

So this is my first blog EVER!  I've never done this before, so where do I start?  Let's begin with the title of this blog and a little bit about why I'm writing it.

Many of you may have an idea what this title means, but maybe your asking yourselves what is a"basketball WAG?"  Well if you don't know, a "WAG" is a term first used to describe the "wives and girlfriends" of high profile football (soccer) players in Europe, mainly in the British tabloids.  Just to give you an example, I've been told that Victoria Beckham is the so called "Queen of the WAGS."  These are women whose husbands make millions upon millions of dollars for playing professional soccer.  Supposedly they spend their time shopping, socializing, partying and being extremely wealthy housewives.  Some of these women have jobs, some of them don't, but they are all pretty much categorized under the same term.  Wags.    

So, if you don't know me you may be wondering how this term relates to my life.  Well, approximately one year and 3 months ago I married the love of my life and my best friend, who just so happens to be a professional basketball player.  When most people think of professional basketball players they think of the NBA, they think of high profile athletes and they think of fame and fortune.  Let's just throw all those ideals and stereotypes out the window in this case.  For some professional basketball players who don't get picked up or drafted to the NBA, the lifestyle is COMPLETELY different.  There is a whole part of this profession that some of you may not know of and it takes place on the other side the pond.  That's right, in Europe!  There are professional basketball teams all over Europe.  Some of the top American players that didn't quite make the NBA get signed to high profile and high budget teams in Europe, but for players coming out of smaller universities that want to pursue a career this is not always the case.  You have to start from the bottom and work your way up, just like any other career.  And that is what my husband is doing.

My husband just so happens to be playing in Bulgaria.  He has played here for the past 2 seasons and now is here for a third.  Last August I joined him in the small town of Samokov, Bulgaria for my first experience ever going overseas where we lived for about 10 months.  He played for a smaller team called Rilski Sportist who played in a mid-level European league called the Balkan League.  Now we are back in Bulgaria in the even smaller, but beautiful town of Pravets for a second season.  He is now with a team called Lukoil who has a much bigger budget and plays in the Euro Cup league, which is one of the top leagues over here.  They are also the top team in the country.  So slowly but surely he is working his way up the basketball chain.  

Life is definitely different here in Europe and being the wife of a somewhat local celebrity and being one of the only blonde, blue eyed girls in Bulgaria can often lead to very interesting stories and situations.  Now don't get me wrong, even though we don't live the "NBA lifestyle" I love the situation we are in.  There are so many good things that come out my husband's profession.  How many people do you know that are able to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time? We get to live overseas for 10 months at a time! This is one reason I love this experience.  We get to travel and see beautiful and amazing places in Europe and not only that, we get to live and experience new cultures and people every year.  We are also very fortunate that we have little to no living expenses.  Most teams will pay for the players houses or apartments, they pay for some of our meals, travel, car, cable, and anything else you can think of.  This means we are able to save A LOT of the money that we make and don't have to deal with "real life" quite yet.  So needless to say, we enjoy our life, even though it can be crazy sometimes.

Now back to the "WAG" discussion.  Last year I was told by a British man I had met, that I was a "WAG."  Not know what this term meant I laughed it off and later asked another friend what it meant and when I found out I really wasn't happy.  Honestly, I found the term to be quite demeaning and derogatory at the time.  I mean personally, I think being described only as the "wife or girlfriend" of a man is somewhat sexist.  I don't want everyone to refer to me as "the wife of so and so..."  Yes I am married to a professional athlete, but I have a name and there's more to me than just that.  But since this is usually the case I have decided that I will embrace my identity as a WAG.  I mean if you think about it some WAGs are actually pretty powerful amazing women.  Let's take Victoria Beckham for example, she is a fashion mogul, a successful businesswoman, style icon, and best-selling author---just to name a few.  But that being said, I want people to know that I am much more than "just a WAG" and that is why I wanted to start this blog.  I am an intelligent, strong woman with ambitions of my own.  I never planned to marry a professional athlete, I just fell in love, got married and that's the end of the story.  Basically I want people to know that being a "WAG" can have nothing to do with being rich, famous or being photographed for tabloids.  Maybe in some situations this is what being the wife of an athlete means, but not in my situation.  It's simply about supporting the person you love and living your life the way you think is best for you and your family.

So all in all, this blog will chronicle my life as a so called WAG and how it can be completely different than the stereotypes.  You will find that this lifestyle comes with the good and the bad, the interesting and the boring, just like anything else.  So I hope you enjoy learning more about my life overseas and this somewhat unusual situation.