Once again I am allowed to be blogging for Fox Sports Wisconsin and thanks to them for allowing me back on the website. I had a ton of fun last year and still need a few projects to take up the countless hours of "unscheduled time." Quite a bit has happened since I presented my last blog all the way back in July when I was back in Minnesota enjoying the summer with my family, friends and lots of sunscreen.
Many people were shocked to see me and constantly gave me weird looks and thought I was supposed to be in Israel. Well the season does end I have my mother and father who would like to see their favorite . . . I mean baby boy. The summer was a blast filled with lots of yoga, boats, trips to Lake Geneva and Wisconsin and Musical Festivals. It also had the start of my first business of running basketball camps and training middle school and high school players.
A few things in my life got shaken up as the upcoming season lured closer. I was not asked to return to Hapoel Jerusalem since my stats/playing time were non-existent last season for some political reasons that were completely out of my control. Welcome to the world of professional sports.
After having a few conversations with my agent Mike Naiditch we decided that the next best move might be the D-League, so I flew down to San Antonio for a tryout. With a not true understanding of what I was walking into I felt like I performed extremely poor and was a little frustrated with the lack of communication and results that I was getting from Mike so I decided to make a change and sign with Sam Cipriano and Keith Kreiter at Edge Sports. Mike did a great job with my career at the start by getting me into pre-draft workouts, NBA summer league and signing with a very high level club my rookie season. But we live in a world of what have you done for me lately and at the time I felt like I needed a change.
August then September came and went far too quickly and I was once again sitting at home waiting for a job. I changed agents pretty late in the game and was doing my best to be patient while Sam and Keith were updating me every few days about the lack of jobs in the world for guys who averaged 6 points in college and only played 25 minutes total the previous year. Also because the economy in Europe is down, teams are not spending as much money, which has created a very different market for this season. There were several really good players who have had great overseas careers still stateside in early October waiting for the right job, which comes down to money and team situation.
I ended up signing my second professional contract in the middle of October with a team in Slovenia. I had to jump through quite a few hoops in order to obtain a work visa, which delayed my departure date a couple of weeks. I also had a very stressful couple of days leading up to my final decision to head on over to Slovenia but that will all be covered in my next blog.
That should catch you all up from the summer. My next blogs will feature the frustrations of a pro athlete, the decision to jump over the pond and continue my career overseas, and the wonderfully awful welcome I received in Slovenia.
(Note:You can find the archive of Mike Bruesewitz's Imported Bru stories and photo galleries here.)
