PORT ANGELES — They came 5,000 miles to Port Angeles for the sights amd cuisine, but most of all for the basketball. And they walked away with a tournament championship.
Port Angeles High School head coach Kasey Ulin played professionally throughout Europe after his college career was over. One of the places he played in 2011-14 was Luxembourg, a tiny country wedged between Germany, Belgium and France.
Ulin coached a number of kids while playing in Luxembourg and he and his wife Bracey (who also played professionally in Europe) made arrangements over the past several months to bring a couple of Luxembourg youth teams to Port Angeles to play in an AAU tournament, held in Port Angeles this weekend.
The Luxembourg kids, who play on teams called Sparta, held fundraisers to pay for the trip and flew 5,000 miles to play in the April Fool’s Tournament. Luxembourg, one of the smallest nations in the world, is roughly one-third the size of Clallam County, though about 600,000 people live within its boundaries.
While they were in Port Angeles for a few days, they saw the sights of the Olympic Peninsula. The area’s wild geography impressed them the most, Ulin said.
“They were shocked at seeing mountains so close to the sea. They couldn’t believe how close the mountains were,” Ulin said.
An eighth-grade Sparta team came to play, as did a U-18 team. The eighth-grade team won its division, beating Port Angeles Green 56-33. The U-18 team made it to the championship game, where they lost fo Port Angeles White 56-21.
Ulin said the European kids play a slightly different style of basketball than in America. In Europe, kids tend not to play different sports at different times of the year.
“They pick one sport at an early age and play it year-round,” he said.
They play with a 24-second clock, so their offense is a little more aggressive. They also tend to not pigeonhole players in certain positions based on their height. “They put their five best players on the floor,” he said.
While the kids were here, they also very much wanted to try American food, in particular, they wanted Mexican food, said Ulin. In addition to the April Fool’s tournament, the Luxembourg teams stopped in New York City on the way back home and played a game there.
“The kids loved it, it was pretty neat,” Ulin said.
Ulin said he is now working on possibly sending a contingent of Port Angeles kids to Luxembourg to play in tournaments in that country.
“A lot of these kids have never left Washington, much less the U.S.,” he said.
