Bucket-Trip 2025 .. Part-6
29.Jun 2025
Days 3-7 … Princeton/Coach Clinic Backstory
(a.k.a) “The Oliver Koch Story”
Some of my friends have asked how the trip was, and I have done my best to explain that to them.
I am not sure that I can find the right words, without sounding “corny”, to really express what transpired during those two weeks.
All of the things that are going on in my personal sphere, and the world in general have, at times, made me doubt whether my total of “almost” 75 years on this planet could be considered a successful venture.
Yes, I have told my doctors and other health care personnel that I was okay with my situation because I had “been there .. done that .. and gotten the T-Shirts”
But, at times I wondered if I believed that, or was I just saying that to make it easier for me to accept my fate.
Therein lies the true purpose of this so-called “Bucket Trip”. It was planned as a chance to go back to the places where I had spent almost half of my life and check in on some of those whose lives had crossed paths with mine.
Oliver Koch was one of those individuals. The pictures in the video tell the story of a boy who started playing basketball in the first camp that, more or less, had my name on it. I’m not sure, but I think it was 1985 in Fulda Germany. I had just left the military, and I have been told that “that was obvious from my coaching style”. 🫣
They show his development on the court. I’d like to believe that all of my players learned the fundamentals of the game, and maybe a little about life, while playing for me.
That’s not the end of the story. The continuation is how the “Bucket Trip” came to be.
Six months ago, I had no goals. There was literally nothing that I felt that I needed (wanted) to do. Add to that my “absolute” frustration with the state of the game of basketball, and the social-political environment, and you have a “let’s just get this over with” attitude.🤷🏽♂️
Enter … Oliver Koch!
We had never really lost contact. I returned to coach in Fulda in 2010, I think it was 2013 when Oliver brought his daughter and son to my camp. Oliver also helped as a coach. It was one of a number of what I have labeled “Full Circle” Coaching Experiences. That’s when a player that I coached at the beginning of playing days, comes back and trusts me to coach his children.
Oliver stayed involved with basketball. A few years later, he asked for a little advice regarding the Under-18 Girls Team that he was coaching. His connection to the game continued and like it said in an old NCAA Commercial “most of them will turn pro .. in something other than sports”!
He is one of them and he became a Doctor, Now he is one of the Team Doctors for the Bundesliga Team “Telekom Baskets Bonn”.
A part of my trip was to touch base with as many of my former players as possible and see how they were doing and what had become of them. Anyway, in February of 2025 we were discussing the offensive trends 🤯 that had invaded the game. The conversation came around to my “prehistoric” beliefs in stuff like “passing”, “moving without the ball” and “playing as a team”.
That, in turn, became a dissertation on the “The Princeton Offense”, favorite amongst “Dinosaurs” and other “Over-the-Hill” Coaches.
That conversation became a project. With some financial assistance, I could go to Germany as the “Apostle of Old-School Basketball”. I could sing the praise of “fundamental” Team-Play to a generation of young players one more time. I could make a contribution to the efforts of those trying to hold back the flood of “Me” Oriented dribble artists and “Logo-3” shooting, chest-pounding, triple step-back, “where’s the camera” ego-maniacs who have taken over the game. … and I could tack on a few days to see how some of my former players were doing.
Thanks to Oliver, I now had something to look forward to, something to plan and and say… “I really want to be able to do this!” The project “Bucket-Trip 2025” was born.
Beginning with the Princeton (Pritzton) Clinic for players and coaches, all the way through the time with Oliver and his family, it was OUTSTANDING.
Coaching a group of young men who “allowed themselves to be coached”, two of whom I would love to see playing college basketball, was really fun. Seeing that group defeat a team of “bigger, faster, stronger” players (which, by the way, is what the offense is designed for) was just icing on the cake.
It wasn’t all work .. I really can’t even call the coaching portion “work”. Hanging out with the family of “kid” that I had coached in 1983, talking about every imaginable topic until after midnight every evening, eating spaghetti-eis (and I wasn’t the only one who likes it)… all of that was rewarding.
There were a number of more elements that made it even more meaningful.
In the video, you will see Oliver and his daughter wearing shirts that he has held onto from his time as a player in Fulda. To me that, in itself, is amazing!
Then, one night at dinner, he left the table and came back with a picture that he had kept. It was hanging on his wall. There are two players in that photo … please, no snide remarks about the length of the shorts, besides, the other guys shorts are shorter than mine🤦🏽♂️.
Anyway, the fact is that he still has that picture, the shirts, his pictures and the stories. All of that began to sink in while I was in Bonn. It went a step further. He told me that there was someone else in Bonn who wanted to see me. In the video, there is a picture of the three of us. Oliver, myself and Heike Frohnapfel. Heike had been in that same camp in 1983 and developed into a player on a very good women’s team in Fulda (also pictured).
So, now you know the backstory to “the Bucket-Trip”.
Now, maybe you know why my players usually made themselves comfortable whenever I started talking during practice…🤷🏽♂️
To finally answer the question "How was your trip?”
It was great! It was more than I could have hoped for. It was a sort of “Validation”. It answered my questions about whether the decisions I made, at the various Crossroads in my life, were the right ones.
The updates from the rest of the trip will only add to that.
I’m back in Houston now and there’s still quite a bit going on, but I am now mentally in a place that I haven’t been in a long time. That’s good for me, and bad for anything that thinks it can be a problem for me.
Lots more to come, so stick around. I’ll also be posting videos and photos in the gallery.
In closing… Thank you to Oliver and his family for being great hosts, the young players in Bonn who participated in the Clinic, and Franceso Tubiana and the Telekom Baskets Bonn.
The FT Fulda Roadrunners Camp is where Oliver started.
The players probably got nauseous after a while when they heard this tune. It was the background music at practice, games and especially the RIBA Camps in the late 80’s.
Not so for me. It’s included in almost every playlist that I have. For me, it brings back “only” pleasant memories of players, families and events from a time when everything seemed right with the world.. at least when we were within “our four walls”.
Oliver remembered it. In 2013, he gave me a copy of the remix!🤣
https://youtu.be/lFmcdf77wzU?si=E4aakDBsJf2BPhnOIf you see yourself or someone you know, feel free to comment, and by all means, pass it on.
#cancer #hofstra #usarmy #booktok #lifetimefitness #cancerjourney #radiationtherapy #basketball
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https://youtu.be/uQdpaETz2Uk?si=r4sgHCvRMz3fTcDWhttps://youtu.be/uQdpaETz2Uk?si=r4sgHCvRMz3fTcDW
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