Fresno State Athletics
12/14/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Ren's Court Report
| Lauren Selmon | ||
Position: Forward Height: 5-11 Hometown: Norman, Okla./ High School: Norman HS Last College: Baylor Univ. Complete Bio |
Ren's Court Report #2
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma
Drew Champagne, our team manager, told me on the bus his idea of family is "sometimes who you are stuck with, and sometimes it's who is stuck with you."
That constitutes our team (coaches, players, media, trainers, managers) as a family because we have been stuck together for the past five days.
We're not an ordinary family though. We've got 23 people in our fam and 18 are women. Our tallest family member is Mindy Clark at 6-3 and our shortest is Angelica at 5-0. We were born in places all over the world ranging from the Hawaiian Islands to the Australian Outback. Everyday is multicultural day for us because four are bi-racial, ten are white, seven are black, one is Hispanic and one is Puerto Rican.
Among our crew, we own 18 cars and 20 cell phones! We could tear the mess out of AT&T's family plan!
Our love lives greatly vary! Two are married, two engaged, nine dating and the rest are single- (some even available). Others enjoy long walks on the beach but don't know how to cook!
Our family, all dressed exactly the same in navy windsuits, set off for Oklahoma. To get there, we had to switch planes at the Denver airport. Our family loves that airport because it has tons of stores to browse in. I say browse because most of us don't buy things from airports. Airport merchandise has experienced a serious case of inflation.
We had a short layover, so we just briefly browsed as we were walking to our gate. We even got to stroll along on those cool moving sidewalk things that big airports have. Those things are free entertainment! Chanie Sutherland and I challenged Faith Probst and Angelica Lopez to a race on them. The rules were only that Chanie and I had to use the regular non-moving ground and Faith and Angelica were able to use the moving thingamajigs. Chanie and I were sweating trying to keep up with them. We lost.
Once in Oklahoma, our tummies were empty so we made a trip to Braums, one of our favorite restaurants in the Midwest. It's supposed to be fast food, but when you travel with our big ole' family, it often becomes slow-food. The crew could not take all of our orders together for some reason, so they took made our food one by one.
Mindy, Tea (Chantea Fleming) and I were at the end of the line and by the time we ordered, almost everyone else had already downed their burgers and fries and had even had some of Braums' famous ice cream for dessert! We were in that place soooooo long that our windsuits had completely absorbed the lovely fast food (well, slow food in this case) hamburger aroma.
It felt great to play back in Oklahoma. For four of the coaches and myself, Oklahoma is home, so a lot of our real family members were in the stands!
A lot of Coach K's family came to the games. It was the first time she had been back home since she gave birth to little Tristan so she got to introduce him to his extended family for the first time!
The tournament went really well. We beat Western Illinois, and even though we lost to Oklahoma State in the championship, we got better as a team while we were there. Aritta got a trophy because she made the All-tournament team. Get hype for Aritta! As we were walking off the court, the top half of her trophy fell off and hit the ground. She quickly picked it up, brushed it off and put it back in place!
Another memorable thing about our trip was free cups! See, Eskimo Joe's is the most famous place in Stillwater. Eskimo Joe's is a sports bar/restaurant. Because Eskimo Joe's is so successful, the owners also made a Mexican food version of it, Mexico Joe's, and an Italian food version, Jopelli's.
The restaurants are fun because they have a lot of TV's so you can watch while you grub. Also, they sell t-shirts that are really popular. If you want to see one, ask Aritta because she bought an adorable pink one. And, the best part of all, you get to keep the cups you drink out of! The cups come in all different colors! I landed a green one and a pink one!
After the Oklahoma State game we had some quality family time. We had it at the most special place in all of Oklahoma, my old house! My parents invited the whole team over just to hang out. It was sweet because my mama had decked the house out with all these pretty Christmas decorations, complete with a full size nativity scene in our yard.
She also had Blue Bell ice cream (the best ice cream in the world) for us and tons of toppings so we could have sundaes! While we ate sundaes, my dad, who used to play pro football, told us some classic sports stories. And, of course before we left, my mama whipped out old home videos of me!
Finally on Sunday, our family vacation was over and we were going back to Fresno. Once again we wound up at the marvelous Denver airport. This time, we had a three-hour layover! A lot of us studied because finals week is quickly approaching! Although we are not looking forward to the tests that await us, our family is ready to get back home!
