First and foremost, I want to thank the Global Neighborhood Project for inviting me to Mongolia to coach basketball to public high school players and teachers! I was incredibly blessed by the experience and would do it again in a heartbeat!
Mongolia is only the second country I have ever visited and I have learned that going to a country teaches you so much more about the history of a people than any book ever could. The Mongolian people are a strong, beautiful, friendly, and resilient people… and they love basketball!
Regardless of their individual skill level, each girl came with a heart to learn and grow as a player. I could see almost immediately that they had not developed their left hand, which is vital in basketball. So I spent almost the entire time doing drills that made them use their left hand. There was a point where I had them hold onto a water bottle with their right hand so that they would only use their left. Although they were uncomfortable, they worked hard and by the end of practice some of the players were already beginning to see positive results!
The high school teachers were an amazing group and were very open to learning the game of basketball from an American perspective. Although some of them played basketball at higher levels, they understood that there is a huge difference between playing and coaching. After seeing that both the boys and the girls did not use their left hands very well, I showed them how to use specific drills to develop skill sets that they wanted to emphasize. I could also see their passion for international 3 v 3 and spent time with them developing a coaching philosophy that would effectively compliment who Mongolians are as a people and what types of skill sets they would need to develop to capitalize on their passion for 3 v 3.
After my visit to Mongolia, I have found that cultures and customs are different from country to country, but people are the same. If we emphasize the negative things in life then all we will see is the negative. But if we emphasize the good, the passion, and the connection between all of us then we could truly become a Global Neighborhood!
