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Gophers Foreign Tour Blog
8/23/2023 2:38:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Maggie Czinano shares her experience at Minnesota's Croatian basketball clinic.
The University of Minnesota is spending 10 days between Croatia and Greece in the month of August. Throughout the tour, the Golden Gophers have plans to give back to both the communities of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Athens, Greece. Maggie Czinano and Grace Grocholski plan on documenting their experiences and give a glimpse into their time giving back.
August 23, 2023 - Welcome to the blog Gophers! Maggie Czinano here to give you all the details of our incredible opportunity to give back to the community of Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Today we completed our basketball clinic in Dubrovnik, a city home to a little over 42,000. This easily is one of my favorite parts of our foreign tour so far and I can already tell it is going to have a lasting impact on me.
The kids that joined us on Wednesday were so excited to be apart of this camp from the moment we entered the gym. And of course we were just as excited to learn more about them and their culture throughout our time with them. We split the kids up and had stations for them to go through, each station lasting about 15 minutes. I was fortunate to lead the defensive station along with Janay Sanders. We worked on close outs, defensive slides, and communication. Each group of kids were so attentive and it seemed like each group we worked with was more eager to learn than the last. They picked up on our drills almost instantly and taught us different basketball saying in Croatian along the way.
It was fascinating to hear about their day-to-day lives and to answer their questions about the United States. It really hit me throughout the camp that we really were making an impact on these young kids not only today, but every day. Some of the children even recognized some of us, including someone mentioning they had seen Mara Braun's buzzer-beating shot from last season.
Finally, to put the cherry on top, many of the camp participants showed up to our game tonight and cheered for us! We got to sign their balls and shirts afterwards, which we were happy to do. This camp showed me how special this sport is to so many all over the world. I cannot express how grateful I am of the sport of basketball to create these opportunities to impact the younger generations not only in our part of the world in the United States, but all around the globe.
To those that made this experience with these campers a reality, I cannot thank you all enough. Without you all, we would not have been able to have these memories that will last a lifetime.
Thanks for following us during our trip to the beautiful countries of Croatia and Greece! Ski U Mah and Go Gophers!
Maggie Czinano.
---
During the team's tour of Croatia, the Golden Gophers were fortunate enough to have Ivan Verunica, the CEO of InCroatia, as the team's local guide. A resident of Croatia, Ivan shared a moment with the team on the bus where he expressed his thanks to the team for taking the time to give back to the city of Dubrovnik:
"We had 11 teams come through Dubrovnik this year and only Minnesota stuck around and did a basketball clinic with our local kids. There were about 60-70 kids and I know as a young boy growing up in Croatia how much this means to our community. You could tell that this was just a really beautiful gift. For Minnesota to give back to our community and say we are not just here as a traveling circus, but we actually stuck around and want to connect, it is a beautiful thing to do. Coach Plitzuweit and the Golden Gophers did a great job and we cannot thank them enough."
August 23, 2023 - Welcome to the blog Gophers! Maggie Czinano here to give you all the details of our incredible opportunity to give back to the community of Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Today we completed our basketball clinic in Dubrovnik, a city home to a little over 42,000. This easily is one of my favorite parts of our foreign tour so far and I can already tell it is going to have a lasting impact on me.
The kids that joined us on Wednesday were so excited to be apart of this camp from the moment we entered the gym. And of course we were just as excited to learn more about them and their culture throughout our time with them. We split the kids up and had stations for them to go through, each station lasting about 15 minutes. I was fortunate to lead the defensive station along with Janay Sanders. We worked on close outs, defensive slides, and communication. Each group of kids were so attentive and it seemed like each group we worked with was more eager to learn than the last. They picked up on our drills almost instantly and taught us different basketball saying in Croatian along the way.
It was fascinating to hear about their day-to-day lives and to answer their questions about the United States. It really hit me throughout the camp that we really were making an impact on these young kids not only today, but every day. Some of the children even recognized some of us, including someone mentioning they had seen Mara Braun's buzzer-beating shot from last season.
Finally, to put the cherry on top, many of the camp participants showed up to our game tonight and cheered for us! We got to sign their balls and shirts afterwards, which we were happy to do. This camp showed me how special this sport is to so many all over the world. I cannot express how grateful I am of the sport of basketball to create these opportunities to impact the younger generations not only in our part of the world in the United States, but all around the globe.
To those that made this experience with these campers a reality, I cannot thank you all enough. Without you all, we would not have been able to have these memories that will last a lifetime.
Thanks for following us during our trip to the beautiful countries of Croatia and Greece! Ski U Mah and Go Gophers!
Maggie Czinano.
---
During the team's tour of Croatia, the Golden Gophers were fortunate enough to have Ivan Verunica, the CEO of InCroatia, as the team's local guide. A resident of Croatia, Ivan shared a moment with the team on the bus where he expressed his thanks to the team for taking the time to give back to the city of Dubrovnik:
"We had 11 teams come through Dubrovnik this year and only Minnesota stuck around and did a basketball clinic with our local kids. There were about 60-70 kids and I know as a young boy growing up in Croatia how much this means to our community. You could tell that this was just a really beautiful gift. For Minnesota to give back to our community and say we are not just here as a traveling circus, but we actually stuck around and want to connect, it is a beautiful thing to do. Coach Plitzuweit and the Golden Gophers did a great job and we cannot thank them enough."
Today we had an incredible opportunity to be able to give back during our foreign tour and put on a basketball clinic in the city of Dubrovnik! 🇭🇷 #SkiUMah pic.twitter.com/WWt12xOBph
— Minnesota Women's Basketball (@GopherWBB) August 23, 2023
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