Well we are currently coming to the end of week 1 (I am writing this on Thursday Sept 23 and Friday Sept 24 is the last day of week 1 classes). It is crazy that this first week has gone by as fast as it has, but I have REALLY enjoyed it. I unfortunately haven't taken many pictures outside of the ones I took day one, but I will try to take more pictures of Fuqua and my school experience during week 2.
Day one the program organized a "Duke Basketball Experience" for our class in Cameron Indoor. It was a really cool experience. Half the time was spent touring the facility and learning a little about how the team watches film and prepares for games. The other half of the time was spent on Cameron Indoor's Coach K court going through various basketball drills. It was really cool to be able to shoot hoops on the Duke floor.
Unfortunately I didn't get to meet or see Coach K (still hoping for a random run in), but while we were doing defense drills I did get to see Coach Steve Wojohoweski who was a player in the 90's that I love watching. He actually even gave us all high fives as we went by which was pretty cool for such a big Duke basketball fan as myself.
Here we are making the trek from Fuqua to Cameron Indoor.
Stepping foot on Coach K Court.
This is where we did a mini film session with the Duke assistant coaches.
The guy in the white shirt is Kenny King the academic coach for the team (a Fuqua alum), and the guy in the black shirt standing up is the video coordinator that does EVERY film session with Coach K. Coach K relies on him so much in fact he took him to Turkey for the World Championships for Team USA.
These are giant photos put on all the walls around the Duke Media room that we were in to do our mini film session. This is Jon Scheyer hugging Lance Thomas right after the buzzer sounded in the National Championship game against Butler.
This was really cool to see. Since we were in the Duke Media Room this is the table and backdrop where the players and coaches do all the press interviews after games.
This is called the Defense Room. This is the last room the players are in before they take the court before a game. On one side of the room are pictures of the current team and on the other side are pictures of all the Duke players who have won the national defensive player of the year award. Duke has won twice as many of these as the next closest school. My favorite Duke player in high school was Shane Battier, winner of the award three years in a row.
Shane Battier #31
This year (2001) he also won National Player of the Year and Duke won the National Championship.
This picture is kind of blurry, but I wanted to give you an idea of how big the room is. Pretty much just big enough to fit all the players. The coaches don't even come in the room with them.
We didn't get to go in here, but it was cool to be so close. :)
This is the door leading into the practice facility and weight room for the team. It felt really cool to go through that door.
The entire hallway is decked out floor to ceiling with Duke stuff.
Great Duke players of the past. The second player from right to left that you can just see his head is Christian Laettner. He has one of the most famous shots from the final four off a full court pass from Grant Hill to beat Kentucky at the last second. The funny thing is there is a guy in our program that HATES Duke basketball for that very play (as do all Kentucky fans) so that is him in the picture taking a picture of Christian Laettner with a thumbs down hand. He was cracking me up.
How cool is this!
My all-time favorite Duke player.
This is the practice facility. It was SO COOL to go in there.
This is pretty cool. The weight room that only the basketball teams get to use. Pretty funny that the basketball team has a better weight room than the football team (usually the basketball is "allowed" to use the football teams equipment).
Me, suited up and ready to be put in the game.
One day I want an office chair just like this.
This is the room where the basketball team watches film.
During the basketball drills portion of the experience, Coach Chris Carawell and some other former Duke players and current coaches took us through drills. He was the 2000 ACC player of the year.
They displayed posters of former players illustrating the five core principles of duke basketball.
Trust, Pride, Communication, Collective Responsibility, and Caring.
My boy Battier was a big communicator on the court.
All in all the basketball experience was a lot of fun and it was cool that the program put that together for us. Now all I need is to be able to meet coach K and to see a Duke game in person! Hopefully both will happen fairly soon!
After the basketball experience, we had a tailgate party with our class outside of Fuqua. I feel kind of weird writing this to YOU when you were there, but I wanted to document it since I didn't get any pictures of it. The BBQ was really good food and it was nice to have you there to meet a few of my classmates. Still being Day 1, I felt like we were still getting back into the comfort phase with everyone in the class, but it was cool to catch up with a few people and have some good food.
After the tailgate, you and Cole fell asleep (Mason was with Cherin) and I went to the Duke v. Alabama football game. Mainly I was really interested to see Alabama play in person since Duke football is still working on getting good and it was free cause I am a student so I thought I would go check it out.
Alabama is currently ranked #1 in the nation, so this was a really big deal for Duke to have so many people at the game. This was the first time I had seen a blimp in person (don't get many blimps flying around Utah).
Here is the student line we stood in to get in. The regulated the number of students that could go in at any one time and since I showed up right at kickoff it took a little while to get in.
Here is what the scoreboard looked like a couple of minutes after we got into stadium. Yep it only got uglier from there. I left at the end of the 1st Qtr and it was 28-3.
Here is a look at Duke's stadium. It was PACKED! I would say it was probably 55/45 with the majority being Alabama fans. It was amazing how well they traveled, especially considering they were playing Duke who is not known for being a good football team.
After I left the game I went over to the team store to see what gear they had for sell and as I was walking back I noticed this stream of people leaving the stadium. At this point it is about 2-3 minutes into the 2nd quarter. Wow!
This wasn't even the end of Day 1 as after this we went as a family to a Luau that Sam and Cherin's ward had at a members home. That was a lot of fun and a great farm style house with lots of acreage around it.
The next day started our classes. This first week I have had a class called Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management. I have been a little nervous for this class because a lot of time it seems like these types of classes get too theoretical and aren't really applicable to real life. This class, however, is AWESOME! We are meeting with real venture capitalists, evaluating real business plans and I have just absolutely loved it. I am looking forward to my negotiation class next week, but I really wish this class could continue into next week as well, because it really has been a lot of fun. One of the best parts is I feel like it has helped me to reflect more on what I want to do with my career and the medical management company idea that I have. There are always going to be bumps in the road, but this class has inspired me even more that I really think I have a viable idea that is marketable and could be a great company. I love being able to sit in class and just ponder over thoughts I have had about building a business and have some of the discussion open my mind to ways I can structure my current idea to really make it work. It has also really opened my mind to the resources that I have available at both Duke and back at BYU that could be a definite strength for me (us) in getting started.
I have also been really proud that I have been really good with crossfit this week. I have had to tweak a few of the workouts because of lack of equipment but the student gym has worked out fairly well. What hasn't worked out is eating well. I did a really good job in Russia and part of it was probably the food selection. In Russia they didn't offer a lot of variety and they didn't offer much that was enticing to me so I actually lost 4 lbs why I was there while working out everyday. Here I am sticking to my same workout schedule (Mon-Wed, Thurs rest, Fri-Sat, Sun Rest) and doing the same crossfit.com workouts that I would be doing at home, but I am eating too much of the junk that they have available. After all the treats that I tried today, I decided that week 1 must have been my cheat week, so week 2 I am going to clean things up. I mainly want to clean things up to get ready for what I am going to do when I get home.
When I get home, I will be entering my 11th month doing crossfit. Since I am coming up on my year mark I really want to lose some of the extra fat that has been hanging on and build some more muscle. Then I will take a 1 year picture and compare against what I looked like before I started. So when I get home I am planning to do a very strict 30 day zone diet to see what results I can get. Another reason for this is I would really like to boost my crossfit WOD performance and cleaning up my diet always helps. I am really excited about it and I know it will only be easier if I start cleaning things up now than to try and make they adjust coming off of two bad weeks here at Duke.
All in all program wise I am really loving this time at Duke. I know things haven't been easy for you since you are away from home living in someone else's house and you don't have any autonomy on how your day goes, but I am sure glad you guys were able to come with me. Even though I don't get to see you everyday, I love that you are closer than a skype chat. I loved that after a couple of days being away I could tell stories and sing songs to Mason and put him to bed or throw Cole up in the air and hear him giggle. I also loved being able to wrap my arms around you and give you a big hug and a kiss and just know that you were there. I am going to be really busy over the next week as I try to finish papers, proposal, assignments, and even some work from back home, but it is nice that I have you to lean on every once in a while (even when you are already shouldering the majority of the weight for our little family).
I want you to know I love you VERY VERY MUCH and you are such a big strength to me to help me push through and finish this program. Thank you for being so supportive as we have navigated this last year of working, school, family, searching for a job, and wondering where we were going to live for the next few years. You are an absolute amazing person!
Love ya babe!
Brock
