Aug. 12, 2001

By Dan Zinna, Senior Manager

Day One of our summer 2001 tour of Europe started out better than any other trip that I have been on with the basketball team. All of the players were in the locker room earlier than expected, packed and ready to go-and they had remembered everything for this very long trip. Everything seemed to be set for a beautiful start to a wonderful trip. One problem though... the bus never showed up to take us to the airport. So, Coach Paul Molinari took off around downtown Cleveland rounding up taxi vans to take us to the airport. Thankfully, our entourage made it to the airport just in time. Our first step was to fly to Washington D.C. In D.C., we started off with another bus scare. We were looking for a tour bus from Gray Line Tours, it was not there. Finally, we found it. Unexplainably, the bus was marked with a small "Gray Line" logo which was barely noticeable because of another big sponsor's name. Finally, we were on our way for a tour of Washington D.C.

Although the tour was brief, I think everyone got something out of it. I saw many smiles on the guys' faces. Many photographs were taken. We passed the Iwo Jima Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and headed off for the Capitol and the monuments on the National Mall. On the way to the monuments, we passed the White House. We stopped our bus around the corner from it and had a chance to take some pictures. From all of the comments that I heard, the players were impressed. The Capitol was also quite impressive. Our whole group took advantage of the photo time with many group shots. Some of our players even received a little attention from some of the (shorter) tourists. Photos were taken and I think some egos were enlarged. We drove by the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Monument and stopped at the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial and the recently added (1995) Korean War Memorial. Once again, everyone passed cameras around for some more group shots. The view of the Washington Monument in the reflecting pool was tremendous. Many of our players were surprised at the detail within the Lincoln Memorial and commented on his eyes. They all said that Lincoln's eyes seemed to follow them wherever they went. It was really nice. Our athletic director Mr. Konstantinos and his wife made a quick run to the Vietnam War Memorial while many of the players took pictures of the reflecting pool. Steve Coleman (Coach's grandson) and I went over to the Korean War Memorial. Finally, everyone piled back into the bus and it was time to go to the airport and depart for our next destination--Milan, Italy.