Keep on Keepin' on– My life as a basketball blogger

The University of Nevada men’s basketball team hosted their first Nike N7 night on Thursday, November 17, 2011. The game was sponsored by the Nike N7 brand and was held to promote Native American awareness month.
There is a large Native American population that supports the athletics at UNR. This year, UNR started a partnership with N7.
The N7 game was played against the University of Pacific from Stockton, Calif. The main attraction of the evening was a halftime performance by Kenny Dobbs. Dobbs is a motivational speaker and self-proclaimed “Dunk Inventor.” He performed a slew of his dunks at half time.

Heather Cusick looks at a gift given to her by Nike N7. Photo by Christina Gough.

“He had a really great performance,” said Heather Cusick, who was in attendance at the game. “I was not only inspired by his fantastic dunking abilities but also by his encouraging words to the crowd.”
Dobbs established the program “Uprise Youth Movement”, which is a nonprofit organization to help the youth in the Native American community. Dobbs travels the U.S. and visits with schools and sports teams on Native American reservations.
“I feel an obligation to give back to my community as well as other communities around the U.S.,” Dobbs said. “Kids need someone who is a positive role model and who can show them that they can make a better life for themselves by working hard and making good choices.”
Along with Dobbs, there are several other athletes, both male and female, who represent the brand. Dobbs said these “ambassadors” are chosen based on their accomplishments both athletically and in the community.
Sam McCracken is the founder of Nike N7. McCracken said his vision for the company came from his own experiences growing up on a reservation and seeing the struggles that so many Native Americans face.
“There are an extremely high percentage of Native Americans who struggle with their physical health and well-being,” McCracken said. “Obesity, alcoholism and suicide are the main causes of death among our people.”
McCracken said his ultimate goal is to make sports more accessible to children growing up on reservations. He said the idea behind this is that children will learn how to live a healthy and active lifestyle and will become adults who pass on the importance of physical health to their children.
“At N7, we always talk about leaving a foot print,” McCracken said. “What you do with your time in this life will have an impact on the generations to come, as well as building on the legacy of the generations before you.”

The athletic staff at the University of Nevada is looking forward to the new partnership with Nike N7.
“We feel extremely honored to be involved with such a great company,” said Rory Hickok, Senior Associate Athletic Director at UNR. “It gives us a great opportunity to get involved with a very special community in our area.”
Nevada went on to win the game by a score of 78-54. Of the 4,016 fans in attendance that night, over half were Native American, and they were honored at half time of the game by standing to an ovation by the crowd.
Hickok says that he hopes the partnership continues to expand and bring awareness to the Natives that live in the Reno area, and encourage even more Natives to attend athletic events at UNR, especially men’s basketball.
“We are very blessed to have such a faithful fan base of Native Americans living in our area,” Hickok said. “I know I speak on behalf of the entire men’s basketball team when I say that it is truly a privilege to be associated with Sam and the entire Nike N7 team.”

The Athlete Ambassadors of Nike N7
Sam Bradford: The Saint Louis Rams quarterback is a proud member of the Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma City. He played college football at Oklahoma and was the first overall draft pick for the 2010 NFL draft.
Tahnee Robinson: Tahnee played basketball at the University of Nevada and was the 31st overall pick in the 2011 WNBA draft. She is currently playing professional basketball for the top national team in Israel. Robinson is a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe in Montana.
Jacoby Ellsbury: Jacoby played college baseball for Oregon State University. After three successful seasons he was drafted by the Boston Red Sox. Ellsbury is the first Native American of Navajo descent to reach the major leagues.
Alvina Begay: Alvina was raised on the Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona. Her love of running started at an early age, and her talent took her to the track team at Arizona State. Begay is now training with the Team USA marathon group and working on finishing her master’s degree in Health Administration.

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The 2011-2012 Men’s Basketball team at the University of Nevada is ready for the season to get started with the first home game less than a month away.

Head coach David Carter hopes that an entire spring and summer of preparation and hard work will pay off as the first official practice has finally arrived. This year’s team is a mix of veteran performers and rookie competitors looking to find success in their final year in the Western Athletic Conference.

“We have the talent and experience to win a championship this year,” Carter said. “Now is the time to see what kind of work everyone put in over the last couple of months.”

The team is comprised of twelve players from all around the world. There are three different countries and four different states represented on the roster. Coach Carter feels that with such a diverse group of players one of the most important elements to their success will be the team’s chemistry.

“We already have a year under our belts together,” said Malik Story, a junior shooting guard for the team. “We spend a lot of time together and have become very comfortable around each other so that adds to our cohesiveness on the court.”

The summer and preseason are the times for a team to not only work on chemistry among players, but also work on individual skill, strength and conditioning. Since the team is not allowed to workout out with or in front of their coaches, the players are the ones responsible for making sure they make improvements in each area of their game. Players can work out with each other and can use school facilities, but most of their training is done on an individual basis.

“My main goal over the summer was to get myself into the best shape possible,” Story said. “I did a lot of cardio such as three mile runs and 15 mile bike rides.”

Other players on the team had different goals they wanted to accomplish over the summer and preseason. Olek Czyz is a senior forward from Gdynia, Poland. Czyz moved to the U.S. before his freshman year of high school and attended Reno High School in Reno, Nev. After playing at Duke University for a year and a half, Czyz decided to transfer to the University of Nevada. Czyz wants to make a statement this year and hopes what he did in the off-season will pay off.

“I have always been in pretty good shape, so that was not my main focus for the preseason,” Czyz said. “I really focused on developing my skill on the court and improving my footwork and speed.”

There are several rules and restrictions that all Division 1 teams in the NCAA must follow. In the preseason leading up to the official practice there are certain time restraints that each team has to comply with. From the time school starts until the first day of official practice, the team is under an “eight hour rule.”

“We are kind of restricted in the preseason as far as what we can do as a team,” Story said. “Our days consist of a lot of running, weight lifting and individual skill work.”

This means the coaches are only allowed to schedule eight hours of organized activity with the team. Included in the eight hours are weight lifting, conditioning and individual workouts. Some of the things that are not included are team meetings, study hall and any extra workouts the players decide to do on their own. The team normally has open gym two or three times a week, where the players come together and play a 5-on-5 full court scrimmage.

“Open gym gives us a great chance to play with each other before the season starts,” Story said. “We are able to build on our team chemistry and get comfortable with the different styles of play that each of us brings to the table.”

If the players do not put in the work they will not be playing when the season starts. Coach Carter’s experience as both a head and assistant coach gives him the ability to tell which players have put in the time and effort to get better.

“There are no secrets to getting better in this game,” Carter said. “The players need to put in the work and the coaching staff can easily tell which players have and have not done that.”

Carter feels that this team’s potential is endless, however he pointed out a few areas that could keep the team from reaching their goals.

“It is definitely a matter of the guys buying into the system that we have,” Carter said. “The guys need to make sure they don’t have an ego and that they always put the team first.”

Another area of concern for Coach Carter is keeping the team free from injury. In all sports, injuries are something every coach wants to stay free from.

“Injuries are a part of sports,” Carter said. “That is why we try and prepare our team physically in the off season so that their chance of being injured is limited.”

With a young team, (there is one freshman, six sophomores, three juniors and two seniors) there is still a lot that needs to be proved. Last year the team had six freshmen in the playing rotation and only one senior on the roster, and Carter said he could see a growth in maturity from the returning players.

“We want to go out there and show everybody that we have grown a lot from last season,” said Deonte Burton, a sophomore point guard from Los Angeles. “We know we are better than our record showed and we definitely want to make a statement this year.”

Official practice has started and according to Burton the anticipation to get things going has been building. The coaching staff has made the preseason schedule challenging, but with a purpose. The main idea of creating a tough non-conference schedule is to prepare the team for tough games once the conference season arrives. This year, the schedule will force the team to not only play well at home, but on the road as well.

“We want to over prepare our team during the non-conference games,” Carter said. “We challenge them so that when the WAC games start, they know how to push through and handle adversity.”

The Wolf Pack begins their season with an exhibition game at Lawlor Events Center on Nov. 8 against Chico State followed by a second home game on Nov. 11 against Missouri State.

Profile on Head Coach David Carter

Coach Carter attended high school at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. He went on to play four years at St. Mary’s College where he received a bachelor of arts in liberal studies in 1989. Carter has been with the Wolf Pack program since 1999 when he began his stint as assistant coach. Five years later he was named associate head coach and in 2009 he took over the program as head coach.

Five Interesting Facts about the 2011-2012 Wolf Pack

• The lone freshman on the team, Richard Bell, arrived in Reno from England only five weeks ago.
• Junior shooting guard Malik Story lost over 20 pounds in the off season, while teammate Jerry Evans packed on 20 lbs to his thin frame.
• Of the 12 players listed on the roster, only two are under 6’4” (Deonte Burton and Keith Fuetsch)
• All but five players on the 2011-2012 team are from California
• Malik Story and sophomore forward Devonte Elliot played on team “Reach USA” in China over the summer

For the most part, college students are not known for their particularly healthy lifestyle choices. Partying on the weekends, late nights and lots of fast food seem to be constants in the lives of most students trying to earn their college degree. However, these things are of no use when trying to live a healthy and active life, and succeed scholastically at the same time.

While there are varying definitions of what a healthy lifestyle entails, for the most part it consists of just a few things.

“In my opinion, a person who is trying to live a healthy lifestyle is actively engaged in physical activity,” said Alvie Hafen, an exercise instructor and student at the University of Nevada.  “They have a well-balanced diet and do a few other small things such as getting enough sleep and keeping a positive attitude.”

The life of most college students is anything but easy. If the stress of classes and homework is not enough, add in a full or part-time job and any type of social life and that makes for a very busy schedule. However, all of these components to everyday life are made easier if you take care of your health, both physical and mental.

“College is stressful, there is no getting around that,” Hafen said. “But when you take care of your body and mind, things become much easier. When you feel good, you are much more motivated to do well in school and it eases a lot of stress that you would otherwise have.”

Hafen has been a Cross Fit instructor at Lombardi on the UNR campus for the past few years. Cross Fit is a high intensity, grueling workout that has motivated Hafen to stay physically fit and maintain a healthy diet.

“Ever since I started taking my personal health more serious, I have noticed a huge increase in my energy levels, especially when it comes to school,” Hafen said. “Staying focused and attending class are two keys to being successful in college, and when you are getting enough exercise, eating well and getting enough sleep, it is much easier to do these things.”

It takes a little self-discipline to be motivated enough to get to the gym or to skip the fast food line. Even with a busy schedule, you can still find time to make healthier decisions.

“When it comes to getting to the gym or going for a run, it is all about motivating yourself,” Hafen said. “Instead of going and hanging out with your friends in between classes, head to the gym for an hour and get a workout in. When your heading home from a long day, try and pick up something from the grocery store to prepare yourself instead of fast food.”

It all comes down to the choices that you choose to make on a daily basis. Enid Jennings runs the Health Education Promotion program at the health center on the UNR campus. Jennings felt that if students had information and advice on how to eat and live better, they would be more inclined to take the small steps to living a healthier lifestyle.

“For college students, it is important for them to make healthy and informed decisions about what they are eating,” Jennings said. “We offer this program at the health center so that students have accessible information on nutrition and wellness.”

With a little bit of self-discipline, the right information and a desire to live well, college students will no longer have an excuse for living an unhealthy lifestyle.

Christina Gough

College basketball comes alive in March. This time of year wasn’t named ‘March Madness’ for no reason. On the women’s side, teams that make it into the post-season tournaments, whether it be the NCAA tournament or Women’s National Invitation Tournament, have the option of placing bids to host these games on their home courts.

The advantages of hosting a game goes beyond simply giving a team home court advantage. It allows them to play in front of their fans again and unites the community to come out and support women’s athletics.

“Being able to host a game in the post-season is something we always strive for in our program,” said Rory Hickok, Senior Associate Athletic Director at the University of Nevada, Reno. “It gives our community a chance to come out and see our team play on their home court again.”

However, there is a process behind bidding to host a game, as well as a price. Before a tournament begins, teams likely to be invited are sent an agreement form, which allows the athletic department to notify the tournament that the school is interested in hosting a game. As soon as a school is invited to play in the tournament, the bidding process begins. A group of administrators in the athletic department sit down to come up with a budget and a bid to send to the tournament.

“We basically sit down and look at our attendance over the year, and try to figure out how many tickets we will need to sell,” Hickok said. “At Nevada, we do not own the facility in which our teams play in. Therefore, the only revenue we bring in at games is off of the tickets we sell.”

For the WNIT, there is a base fee that each team interested in hosting must be able to meet. In 2011, that amount was $6,500 for the first round. For every round after that, the base fee increased by $1,000. Once an amount is agreed upon by the athletic department, an original bid is sent into the tournament director. Also included on the paperwork for the bid is the team’s average attendance at home games over the past year.

“We wanted to be sure that we gave our team the best possible chance to host the second round game,” Hickok said. “In order to do that, we came up with a large bid that we felt would undoubtedly bring our team home.”

The tournament director then looks over the bid from each school, and makes the decision on where the game will be played. Once the game is played, the revenue collected at the game is calculated, and the original bid is paid to the tournament. In 2011, the women’s basketball team at Nevada hosted a second round WNIT game against the University of Southern Cal. This contest drew the largest crowd in program history for Nevada, with a final count of 3,361 fans in attendance.

While the process may be slightly tedious and a tad risky, the outcome is something that can often change a program. Teams normally thrive on their home courts, and given the opportunity to play there again is worth it all in the end.

There is a safe haven for women in Northern Nevada looking to escape from their broken lives and work toward a new path of happiness and well-being. The Hosanna Home, located in Sparks is helping to give local women a second chance at life.

In 2006 the founder of the Hosanna Home, Linda Patterson, was given the opportunity to start making her dream of this recovery home a reality. Funding began through donations from local churches and businesses, and the construction on the home was completed in 2008. The assistant director, Joy Corkill, moved back to Reno around the time the first resident moved in.

“I was really interested in doing volunteer work with women who were trying to find themselves through faith. When I heard about Hosanna Home, I knew it was going to be a very good fit for me, and that I would be able to do some growing and recovery as well.”

The home is funded solely on donations; therefore women are able to come practically free of charge. There is an application and interview process that takes place with each hopeful resident. Sobriety is a requirement upon entering the home, and the women cannot be convicted of a violent or sex related crime. Some of the common issues that the women deal with prior to entering the home include domestic violence and childhood abuse. The average age of the residents is between 40 and 53 years, although recently there was a young woman living there who had just turned 18. The minimum required length of stay is six months; however there are some exceptions to this.

A daily morning routine consists of waking up around 7 a.m., getting dressed and having breakfast with one another. Then each women leaves for either school or work around 9 a.m. and returns before dinner, which is also the curfew time, at 6 p.m. If one of the residents has children living in the area, they are invited to eat dinner at the home and come to the house to interact with their mothers on the weekends. There are a few rules that each of the women must follow, which include no dating, no cell phones, and a willingness to set and achieve small goals to help them move closer to a better life. When put into perspective, these few rules are a very small price to pay for the opportunity to have a second chance at life.

Hey everybody! My name is Christina Gough and I am a junior at the Unviersity of Nevada Reno. I am twenty years young, and have been living in Reno my whole life. I play for the women’s basketball team at Nevada and have been loving every minute of it. I was born and raised in Reno, and have lived here my entire life except for a brief time when I played basketball for a junior college in Yakima, Washington. I absolutely love playing basketball and enjoy being around my teammates more than anything.

I am so excited to be learning about journalism, news, and media. I am very interested in doing something with sports broadcasting as a career somewhere down the line. So for the mean time, I am going to just try and keep on keepin’ on with this whole blogging adventure! Until next time…..