Our spring university life.

One-third of the summer is gone, and I was sure we just barely stepped into it. Trying to catch up on our blogging is a bit overwhelming, so in this post I will try to hit some highlights from our spring 2018 at NU campus (I decided to do a separate post on our spring as a family).

In March and April, we attended end of the year concerts for the NU Orchestra and NU Choir. Somehow, we got on their VIP lists, so we had very nice seats reserved for us. Yay! Both events are always very well-attended, and it is almost impossible to get the tickets. Both Orchestra and the Choir did an amazing job as always. Spencer and I were talking about how it would be great for them to do a tour in America, showing Kazakh culture. One of my favorite pieces from orchestra was the Believer (Imagine Dragons) played on national Kazakh instruments. The choir did songs from famous musicals which was a lot of fun!

Waiting for the show to start (NU Orchestra)

NU Orchestra (some of the national instruments they play are very cool)

They even had a base guitar! If you want to see some of their pieces, just search on YouTube for NU Orchestra) 

NU Choir had in my opinion their best performance in all of the years we've been here!

Spencer was nominated for Professor of the Year Award (in total only 5 professors from the entire university were nominated), so we went to that fancy Award Ceremony where the students, clubs, and one professor get an award for being awesome. I mean they even rolled out the red carpet, how fancy is that?! And even though Spencer didn’t win the award, the students cheered the loudest for him when his name was read! Another positive outcome of this event was that I got myself a new dress and new shoes! 😊

 

Who are these two handsome people?

At the ceremony we had a front row seats!

We also had our annual award ceremony for our basketball team. As always it was held at our house with a lunch, laughter, and some tears (tears from saying goodbye to our two graduating basketball players). We love our basketball family!

Some of our second year girls

Aigerym  and Ayim, our two graduates this year.

Our basketball family minus Nika who is taking this picture.

NU does a year book (kind of like in any US high school), but this is the first year Spencer decided to get one. Maybe it was because this year was the first year his students that he led from the very first year, graduated. I don’t know, I should ask. But we made it into this year book (besides his picture on the list of the faculty). I think students like him!

Spring, dentists, basketball and what not.

Here is what March 15 looked like outside of our west window. It is exactly how it looked like every year in the 4 years that we've been here, and I have a feeling that it will continue to look like it for the next ... zillion years. And we even had the temperatures to match the looks: -19 C (-2 F). It is also the day when I feel absolutely justified in picking our Spring Break destination! This year we are going to Vietnam!

Here is our campus on March 15 - a beautiful Winter Wonderland!

This year is a very good year for our dentist here. We are bringing them a lot of business! Dentistry here is very advanced and it is much cheaper than in America, so we are taking advantage of it. I had some implants put in last month, and this month Nika is getting her braces, and Lina and Lexa are getting the plates to help them correct their bite.  

Here is Lina and Lexa walking on the cold morning of our favorite March 15 to the dentist clinic.

In front of the building where our clinic is. One thing that I love about Astana is that it is a city of sunshine!

Lexa getting ready for her mold

Last week we had a kind of unique opportunity to watch semi-professional teams play in the tournament right in our backyard - at the NU Sports Center. We just had to walk 100 yards from our apartment building and watch! And amazing thing happened that their games started a whole hour earlier than it was announced! Things never start on time here but I have never seen anything start early!

BC Astana vs. Barsy Atyrau

Watching the game! Some of the NU Basketball girls are behind us.

Basketball Season II

This year was my second year as the head coach of the NU women's basketball team.  Last year was a complete rebuild - with only 1 returning starter and six new players.  In the spring last year we had four girls graduate, and so this year we added four new players to the roster after tryouts in August.  Brandon Brock, who is a writing instructor in the school was my assistant again this year. One exciting development this year was that a new wooden court and new standards were installed so that the local professional team could practice at our facility.  It has made our basketball facility much better.

The team really started building an identity this year, and it is amazing how much improvement they have made.  I have grown a lot as a coach and have been able to build some new drills and routines to maximize the strengths of the girls.  The four new girls that we added to our team this year have been great.  Two of them are from Semey, which was the area of Soviet nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s and had played together in high school.  One of the girls is from Almaty and is also one of the leaders of the NU cheer-leading club.  The last is from Taraz, and she also plays in the orchestra.  We have students from each of the three undergraduate schools, and the girls do very well.

We had a few activities this year.  The first was a breakfast during the first part of the season as a kind of get to know you activity.  We also had a great end of year dinner with the girls.  I spend three nights a week with them at practice, and more hours planning, preparing for games, and just talking with the girls.  They become a part of our family in many ways, and we really enjoy having them as part of our lives here.

Team Breakfast in September

As far as the season goes, we didn't have a national league and tournament this year.  In the fall we put together two friendly games with two universities here in town that have good basketball programs. We played four more friendly games in February and early march against the same two teams.  One of the teams, Eurasian National (ENU), is very good.  They have players that have been playing for a long time, and who have played together for a long time.  They also have a good coach.  We beat them in October, but didn't beat them the rest of the year.  Medical University is another good team, and we split our friendly games with them.

Photos from our last friendly game against ENU - the team that won the tournament this eyar.

At the beginning of April we were told that there would be a city-wide tournament.  The women's brackets included the three strongest teams, us, Medical, and ENU in one bracket along with one weak team.  The other bracket had three weak teams.  Our first game was against ENU and we lost, but in a fairly close  game.  We had a difficult time scoring in the second half and couldn't beat them.  However, we won the next three games and took 3rd place in the tournament overall.  It was a good place to be.  We don't offer athletic scholarships and most of our students have not played a lot of sports, and so we are building a program from the bottom up.  With the girls and the growth they are making, it is our goal to compete every year for the top place in the city, and to be competitive if we ever play games against other cities.

Overall, the year was a success.  We had a nice closing dinner after the tournament ended.  We said goodbye to our three graduating seniors and gave awards for most improved and most valuable players.  The alumni from the past two years put together a scholarship fund (on their own) and awarded two of the girls about $100.00 each to help them with their studies.  Like I said, they are great girls, and we are glad to have them in our lives.  Coaching basketball has been one of the most rewarding things that I've done here and has really tied us into the lives of students here in ways that would be impossible otherwise.

End of year awards dinner

Giving Awards to our three graduating seniors.

Giving more awards

Watching video that the girls made for the seniors

Group Photo

Team Photo 2016-17

Utah Jazz Summer League

One of the things I have missed about living in Utah is watching Utah Jazz games.  Yulia and I went to a few games together after we were married.  We enjoyed watching them on television when they played.  During graduate school I couldn't afford to have the NBA league pass that would have allowed me to watch games from Iowa.  I thought about getting League Pass last year, but since the games are 10-13 hours behind my time, they come right at the time that I am starting work.  I may get the pass so I can watch the games on delay this year.

Watching the game!

The Jazz re-started their summer league (the former Rocky Mountain Review) this year.  I bought tickets for the six of us plus my nephew Luke, who is a big basketball fan, to go to the first night of the summer league.  The tickets were very reasonable - about 8 dollars for lower bowl tickets for two games.

We left Payson at about 3:00 and picked up Luke in Springville.  We drove to Salt Lake and parked at the City Creek Mall.  We ate Chick-fil-A for dinner and then had to wait out a torrential downpour for a few minutes.  When it had mostly passed, we caught the TRAX train to the Energy Solutions Arena (The Old Delta Center) for the game.  We were part of the first 5000 fans so we each received a nice water bottle.  Our seats were good - about twenty rows up behind one of the baskets.  The arena is really nice with new big screens that made catching replays very nice.

The kids are really into the games!

We missed about 10 minutes of the first game - Boston vs. San Antonio, but were able to watch the rest of the game.  The kids had a lot of fun.  After the first game, Yulia took the kids and bought them Cotton Candy and Popcorn to eat - they were in heaven!  We were really excited to see the Jazz team.  We were able to see Dante Exum before he got hurt (and he later tore his ACL playing for Australia, so he'll be out for the season) and Rodney Hood.  The game was very exciting and the Jazz beat the Boston Celtics.

View form our seat.  Look at how nice the screens are.

First game; Spurs vs. Magic

So much cotton candy.  Such happy kids!

Sophie working hard at finishing her cotton candy.

The stadium filled up quite well for the Jazz game.

More action from Jazz vs. Celtics

More game action.

Halftime entertainment was the Jazz dunk team.  They go off trampolines and are quite impressive and fun.

Summersault dunk!

After the game we walked back to City Creek and drove home - we were home by about 11:00.  It was a very fun time.  The kids got to experience the excitement of the basketball game - they loved the Jazz Bear and were yelling at the other team.  During the first game they chose to cheer for Orlando over San Antonio so we could cheer against each other.  We had a great time.  It's something we would like to do again if we are in town during the Utah Jazz Summer League.

Basketball Part III: I'm the Head Coach Going Forward

I have written a few times about my involvement with the NU Women's basketball team.  The opportunity to work with the girls has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my involvement at the university.  In this post I will detail some of the exciting developments from the spring, including our results from the two tournaments we played in, as well as the future going forward.

3 on 3 Tournament

In early March there was an announcement that there would be a student/staff 3 on 3 tournament on a Saturday morning and afternoon.  Brett and I, along with one staff member from Brett's school and one of our players, Dinara, decided to enter.  Our goal was to win the whole tournament.   Each team could have 4 players, but play 3 at a time.  Dinara had to leave after we played our first two teams, so we were playing every game with just the three of us.  We won all of our games - five - and then played in the championship.  The team we played used five players and played all five at some point during the game against us.  It was a bit of cheating that we were upset about, but it happened.  One of their players got really hot from the three point line and all of their points came from long 3s.  We lost by 1 point when he hit his last long 3.  It was a bitter pill.  You can see from the photo of Brett and I playing how much fun we had together.  Getting to know and work with Brett has been awesome!

Commiserating with Brett during or after a game.  What a great friend.

League Season and Tournament

Brett, who has been the coach for the past three years organized a league with four other teams.  The league included 3 other universities and the "B" team from NU.  The "B" team is new this year.  We had so many girls who wanted to play, that when we selected the team in September, they decided they wanted to practice.  They spent their own money to pay for sports passes and practiced twice a week, often with the help of one of the girls from the main team.  When one of the teams dropped out of the tournament, we gave them an opportunity to play.  They didn't win any games, but they had a good experience, which will help for next year.

Action shot of our girls playing against the Agrarian University team - this team ended up in 4th place in the tournament.

The season was arranged so that each team played each other.  Each week for four weeks we had two games a night on Thursday evenings.  Our girls won all four of our games, and so we received the top seed in the tournament.  In the first round of the tournament the 1 seed played the 4, and the 2 and 3 seeds played each other.  We also won the first game of the semi-final.  In the final game we played our main rival in the city: for the second time in the tournament.  We won the championship game in a hard-fought victory - which meant that we went undefeated in the season and the tournament.

League and tournament champions!

Top 3 teams.  The team on the left is our main rival!

That was the culmination of the years efforts.  A few weeks later we were told at the last minute that the Ministry of Education and or Sport would be holding a tournament at the university.  This is the tournament that our girls took third place in last year - a vast improvement over their previous results.  This tournament was very poorly organized, but our girls took part.  Our first game was against the team we had beat for the championship in our tournament.  The game was hard-fought again, but we won.

Our second game was against the 3rd place team from the tournament we played in.  That game was one of the ugliest games we played in all year.  Nothing that we shot went in, but in the end, we held on and won.  We played in the championship against a team that didn't participate in the league and tournament that we put on.  By the end of the tournament we were the bad guys - all of the girls and fans from the other teams were cheering against us.  It was a very different feeling from that of being underdogs in the previous years.  The team we played was strong, but we held on and won.  They scored 13 of their 17 points on free throws - we scored four of ours on free throws.  We were up by two points with a few seconds left to go and one of our girls hit a long two point shot at the buzzer to seal the victory.

Qualifying game during Ministry Tournament.

Champions again! With medals and certificates to prove it.

It was a fine way to end the season.  7 of the 13 players on the team are seniors and will graduate in June.  They started the team with nothing and worked hard for three years and were able to attain a degree of excellence.  One of the biggest compliments that we received is from the father (and coach) of the star of our main rivals.  He said that we are now the example of what a team should be and that we are helping to bring respectability and professionalism to women's sports.  That is what we are trying to do for sure.

Social and other Activities

Yulia and I hosted the team at our house for an end of year banquet and awards ceremony in between the two tournaments. Our most valuable player was going to Milan for a work internship before the school year ended.  It was a very emotional ceremony as Brett said goodbye to the girls as well.  He accepted a job in the States beginning in August.  I became the head coach officially after our tournament.

Handing out awards at the end of the season.

Notice how dressed up the girls get - much different from boys basketball in this respect!

A fine group.  It is bittersweet to be a part of the changes in the next year.

Besides the end of the year banquet, we had a dinner at a restaurant after our second tournament win. The next week we had a dinner and get together at the house of one of our players who had a birthday during the tournament.  Being a part of the team means a lot of extra fun social interaction as well.

Going Forward

This year has been one of the most rewarding of my life.  The opportunity to be a part of the team has been one that has been very good for me in a number of ways.  I am a bit apprehensive about the prospect of being in charge of the team next year, but am also looking forward to the challenge of rebuilding the team after 4 of our starters and our two main bench players graduate, and of carrying on the legacy of success that the team has built in a few short years.  I am also excited for my girls to have as role models these excellent scholar athletes who dedicate themselves to a game that they love while continuing to have great success in the classroom and in life.