University of Richmond Athletics
Abby Oliver Update: Greetings From Israel
11/05/2012 | Women's Basketball
Below is a blog from graduated senior Abby Oliver and her
professional playing experience in Israel. Oliver finished as the seventh leading scorer
in Richmond women's basketball history, and will provide periodic updates through
her blog for RichmondSpiders.com. For up-to-date news on Oliver's team, please visit the official Elizur Netanya website. (Click on the English tab).
Hi Spider Fans!
It is
November and that means it is officially basketball season! I am sad that I don't get to play college
basketball anymore and wear a Richmond uniform, but I get to continue playing
the game I love on a professional team in Israel called Elizur Netanya. I left the United States on October 13th
to begin my pro basketball career and everything has been great so far!
For those of you who don't know, I hate flying, so I had an extremely long trip to get to Israel. At 11am I flew from Roanoke (my hometown) to Chicago, then from Chicago to Newark, and finally from Newark to Israel. The total flight time was around 15 hours and it took about 11 hours to get from Newark to Israel. It felt weird being in airports by myself and not with my Richmond teammates and coaches. However, I met up with my current American teammates, Courtney, Tia, and Charel, in Newark and was able to fly with them to Israel. The three of them are great people, so I was happy to meet up with them.
By
the time we landed in Israel it was 3:30pm and I was tired but excited. Our team's spokesman, Sasha, picked us up
from the airport and drove us and our luggage to the city of Netanya, which
took about 45 minutes. During the drive
I immediately noticed that the people here are crazy drivers! Cars were weaving in and out of traffic like
crazy and were coming close to hitting other cars, but they didn't seem to
care. Also, there are many motorcyclists
here and they ride between the lanes of traffic with no hesitation at all. When I am riding in a car with my arm out the
window, I have to be on the lookout for motorcyclist and make sure they don't hit
and take off my arm!
When
we arrived in Netanya, Sasha dropped us off at our apartments and we were able
to meet our apartment mates and unpack a little before our practice at
7:45pm. I live in a three bedroom
apartment that is right on the Mediterranean Sea with my teammates, Niki and
Inbal. Niki played at Hofstra University
and has been in Israel practicing with the team since the end of August. Inbal is from Tel Aviv, Israel. They are both extremely nice and I am glad to
be apartment mates with them.
Before practice, I met my teammates, my head coach, Zohar, and my assistant coach, Shlomi. One thing that I have noticed since being here is that we have great people on our team. Everyone is really nice and nobody is selfish, which is not seen on every team, so I feel very lucky about that. The first practice went surprisingly well considering four of us had been on airplanes and in airports for about 24 hours straight and with barely any sleep. I thought my body would be barely able to run, shoot, and play defense, but luckily I felt pretty good and I was happy to practice with my new team. After practice, a few teammates and I went out to eat and then I went back to the apartment to unpack and eventually fall asleep.
Since traveling and my first day here I have been able to get settled in, learn more about Israel, and get comfortable with the team. It took me a while to get over the jet lag. I was going to bed around 3am every day for about a week or so, but now I am adjusted. As far as the city of Netanya goes, I love it so far because I am living right on the beach! I love the water and there are so many water activities to do here like wind boarding, jet skies, tubing, sail boats, parasailing, and much more. Anytime I want I can walk outside my apartment door and take in the beautiful scenery of the Mediterranean Sea. Numerous times I have been able to watch the sun set over the water and it is just so amazing!
Basketball has been going well. Our team practices are late at night every night except for Fridays due to Shabbat. I will have to admit I am not a big fan of the evening practices because I feel like I have to save my energy and wait all day for practices. Sometimes we start practice at 8:30pm and don't get out until 11pm! However, I am getting use to the late practices and I am adjusting my days accordingly. So far, we have had three scrimmages and our first game is on November 5th against one of the top teams in the league. One thing I love about playing in Israel is that four Americans can play on each team, which is a lot compared to other countries and it makes Israel a really strong league. There is a lot of talent on each team and I get to play against a lot of WNBA players and big name players. As a competitor, this is what you want...to compete against some of the best players in the world!
I will keep you all updated on how things are going throughout my season in Israel. Also, good luck to the Richmond Women's Basketball team as they play their first game of the season against Longwood! I will be cheering you girls on while watching on my computer in Israel!
