Our Trip To Israel

Stay up-to-date with head basketball coach Bruce Pearl and his family as they prepare for a trip of a lifetime when they venture to Israel for the 18th World Maccabiah Games, scheduled for July 12-23. Bruce, along with his son, Steven, and daughter, Jacqui, will provide updates as the trip goes along; from basketball training camp in Philadelphia to the overseas flight and the games in Israel. Bruce Pearl serves as the head coach for Maccabi USA's open men's basketball team.

Sometimes referred to as the "Jewish Olympics", these Games are held every four years in Israel attracting the most outstanding Jewish athletes from around the world. The 18th Maccabiah will be held July 2009.

As one of the largest elite competitions, the Maccabiah grew to over 7000 athletes from over 50 countries making it the third largest sports event in the world. In keeping with its Mission to perpetuate and preserve the American Jewish community by encouraging Jewish Pride, strengthening Jewish bonds, and by creating a heightened awareness of Israel and Jewish Identity, Maccabi USA established a Pre Camp in Israel in 1989, including B'nai Mitzvah and touring of Israel.

Click here for history on the World Maccabiah Games, or click here for information about Maccabi USA.

July 27 - It is so good to be back! I never thought I could miss Knoxville, Tennessee this much. I just wanted to write one last blog and give you a recap of how the last two days went in Israel.

In the semifinals we met up with Canada again. We didn’t want to overlook them because of how bad we beat them in the exhibition game, so we handled our business and beat them pretty good again. Then it was on to the gold-medal game against Israel. This was the reason we came to Israel, and now it was all in front of us and in our control. Israel came into the game playing very well and beating the last two teams they faced by large margins. Even though we had played three straight games in three days that didn’t bother us because we were so pumped up for the gold-medal game.

The day had come. We were facing the favored Israel team for the gold medal. I’ll give you a quarter-by-quarter analysis of the game. Coming into the game we were told by many people that the officials were not going to give us any calls because they were Israeli officials, so we accepted that and got ready.

The first quarter we jumped out on them from the start and the officials were not bad at all. We were leading by about 11-13 points the entire first quarter.

In the second quarter the tables turned. The officials started calling a lot of fouls and they were not in favor of us. Israel finally got settled in and started chipping away at the lead. By halftime we were only up by a couple points. We went into the locker room knowing if we just picked up our defense and kept our composure we would come out of the game with a win.

The third quarter was very similar to the first. We jumped out on them by about 13 with about four minutes to go in the quarter, but Israel was able to chip that lead down to five points heading into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was not a very good quarter for us. Israel rallied to tie the game at 65 with under seven minutes to play in the fourth. They then used another late spurt to build a 73-67 lead with 4:46 to play. At this point we knew we had to make something happen. With about 2:54 to play we were down eight points. We were able to battle back and cut away at their lead little by little. Eventually back-to-back baskets by Dan Grunfeld and Seth Hauben cut their lead to 77-76 with 48.8 seconds left in regulation. Then after Israel scored again, Grunfeld made a huge three-point play to tie the score at 79. We knew that if we just got one stop we would have the momentum going into the overtime. We were able to deny a pair of shots in the final 10 seconds to force overtime.

In overtime we got down by two points in the opening minute, but after that we led the entire time and eventually won by nine points. As soon as the game was over we rushed the court and celebrated. There were photographers everywhere and it was something I will never forget for the rest of my life!

This was the greatest accomplishment I have achieved in my entire life, and what makes it even more special is I got to share it with my dad being my coach. I would like to thank all of you for following this blog, and I hope I was able to make it half as exciting for you as it was for me. Thanks!

Steven

July 20 - What's up everyone?

Here is a two-game update from the past two days. Sunday we played against Russia, and it was a tough matchup. Their team consisted of eight guys who play in the top professional league in Russia—not sure if all of them were actually Jewish, but it's all good. We lost on a last-second tip-in but battled back from 10 points behind in the fourth quarter so it showed that our team has some poise and confidence. Russia was very long and tall and played zone the entire game, and it bothered us and got us out of sync.

After the game we found out that if we lose on Monday, then we are out. If we win by 4 to 10 points against Argentina, we are in first place and Argentina is in second place. And if we win by 11 or more we are in first and Russia would get second place. So we were feeling a little pressure and got together as a team and made sure we handled that pressure so we could deal with it the right way.

Monday's game was very physical—and to be honest, dirty. The guys from Argentina play physically a very different way than we do. They play dirty when they play physical, but the officials over here have been letting it go. The game was very competitive with a lot of emotion because both teams had a lot at stake. We kept a 10-point lead throughout the game, and Argentina kept that in mind knowing that they had to keep the margin under 11. They shot the lights out at the end and ended up losing by eight points and started celebrating after the game. I've never seen anything like it before! They were just very excited to be playing in the medal round. I played very well with 10 points seven rebounds and seven assists, so overall a very complete game. We will most likely play Canada (Tuesday) in the semifinals for a chance to go to the gold-medal game, so I will keep you all updated.

Steven

July 16 -What's going on everybody? Sorry I haven't been able to blog the last two days; the Internet at the hotel has been messed up so I haven't been able to log on. But you already can see how our first two games turned out because they were in the paper or on the UTsports.com Web site.

I'll give you a rundown of how the first two games went. We opened up with Mexico, and as you can see from the score (112-13) it was pretty one-sided. It was tough, but at the same time we still needed to work on our game and get ready for the competition. I've never seen a team so happy after losing by 99 points. They wanted to take pictures after the game and told us they felt honored to play against Team USA, and it shows that basketball is more than just a competition ... it is really a great, fun game.

Next we had France. This is the France team-minus one or two players-that beat Team USA in the Games four years ago, so we had some revenge to get back. Not only did we have the motivation to repay these guys for beating us a couple years ago, but before the game there was a dispute over which basketball we were going to use. We had the correct ball, but Maccabi (officials) ordered the wrong ball, which was the ball France brought with them. Their coaches were getting loud and obnoxious about the situation, and it honestly fired the rest of us up to want to beat them that much more. We played very well and led from beginning to end and completely wore them down.

We have the next three days off from competition and don't play until Sunday and then have four games in four days if we want to win the gold. I wonder if the home Israel team designed it that way to get an advantage? But it is all good. We are all looking forward to the challenge. I'll blog again before our next game when we play Russia. Thanks for following!

Steven

July 14 -What's up everyone? The last couple days have been very relaxed, but I will give you a rundown of what's been going on. As you can see on the UTsports.com Web site, we had a pretty lopsided exhibition against Canada. They haven't been able to practice together as long as we have, so we were much more in-sync than they were. I played well and finally started shooting the ball like I'm capable of, which is a good sign heading into the real deal.

Yesterday was opening ceremonies for every delegation in the Maccabiah Games. It was held at Ramat Gan soccer stadium, where a first-division soccer team plays here in Israel. There were 60,000 people in the stadium cheering for all the athletes as we entered! It was breathtaking to see that many people come out to support this event. It really shows that this is a big deal to the Jewish people. The prime minister of Israel came and spoke to us, which is a very big deal. Once we all got into the stadium there was a show with singers and dancers, and overall it was a pretty cool deal. Once we got back to the hotel we were all starving so we got some Dominos pizza and went to bed so we would be well rested for our game today against Mexico.

Today we are just preparing for that game tonight against Mexico. Mexico is most likely the weakest team in our bracket, but we are still approaching it like they are the best team. After the game I'll make sure to shoot a blog and let you guys know how it went. Thanks for following!

Steven

July 9 - What's going on, Knoxville? Sorry it has been a couple days, but we have been so jam-packed with things to do that I haven't had any time to sit at my computer and blog for everyone. So now I'll give you a recap of some of the things we have done over the past four days.

The first day we had 9 a.m. practice that was just an average practice for us. We still hadn't adjusted to the time difference, so we didn't have our legs, but we will be fine.

For the first day of touring we visited a group of famous caves and archeological digging sites that our tour guide had excavated over his time in Israel. It was basically where the people who lived in the desert would go for air conditioning because it was very cool in the caves. Once we finished going through the caves we went to a military fortress full of tanks where all of the soldiers in Israel are sworn into the military. It was a historical site of one of the battles the Jews endured to enjoy a free Israel. That night we had a dinner with the entire U.S. delegation, and then we hit the beds right away.

Day 2 was the same schedule in the morning, practice from 9- 11 a.m., and it went well. We are really starting to come together as a team. On this day we went to visit modern-day Jerusalem. The day also included going to Yad Vashem and the soldiers' cemetery in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of The Holocaust (established in 1953).

This day was deep and full of emotion. Yad Vashem is something that is hard to describe in words because there is no way to give enough justice to those who had to suffer through The Holocaust. These Jews, who were a large part of society in Europe, were seen as pests and “the problem.” The images and stories that were told were so amazing and real that it was hard to overcome the emotion that was seeping out. There were videos of some of the survivors and their stories of how they were treated and how they made it out alive. It was terrible and also inspiring to see what my people had overcome and how 6 million Jews were murdered—and still today we are still a strong religion.

Then when we thought it was over we went into the Children's Memorial. It was a dark room with reflecting mirrors and candles lit all over with a voice saying the name and age of each child that was murdered. A lot of the people in the tour about lost it because it was such a strong and meaningful memorial; anyone would have been overcome with emotion.

Next we went to a soldiers' cemetery that is a very popular place because not only are soldiers buried there, but also prime ministers and higher-ranked soldiers are all buried in the same place as one people. It was meaningful because it says that all Jews are the same. The people of Israel are very passionate and proud of their military because they just recently got their independence, and it's all thanks to the soldiers and Israel. Overall, an emotional day, but definitely something I needed to see and experience.

Day 3 was the day we visited ancient Jerusalem. We started the day by going to the Western Wall, which is also referred to as the Wailing Wall or simply the Kotel. It is one of the holiest places in the entire world, and one of the oldest walls in the world. Jews go here daily to pray and carry out their religious beliefs. One of the traditions of going to the Western Wall is to write a prayer or some thoughts on a piece of paper and stick it in the cracks and pray that this prayer or thought comes true. For Jews it is basically the closest thing to talking to God. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

Next we toured the City of David in Jerusalem. All we did here was learn some more history of Jerusalem and those who lived before us. The last thing we did was go to a tunnel that was ankle-high with water that the Jews used as a passage into the city of Jerusalem; it was a claustrophobic's worst nightmare! Once we ended the 40-minute walk through the tight, dark tunnel, we came back to the hotel, ate dinner and crashed.

Day 4 started off with an inner-squad scrimmage; it was three 10-minute quarters, and we switched up the teams after 10 minutes. The third game went into triple overtime and overall everyone played well.

On that day we were going to the Dead Sea and Mount Masada. For those of you who don't know, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth and the water there is full of minerals so anyone who goes into the Dead Sea automatically floats.

After the Dead Sea we went to Mount Masada, which was my favorite place we visited so far on the trip. It is a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. After the First Jewish-Roman War (also known as the Great Jewish Revolt), a siege of the fortress by troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of the sicarii rebels, who preferred death to surrender. It was just crazy to see a city built on top of a mountain and being able to go up the and take some amazing pictures and learn some awesome ancient history.

Once we were finished at Masada we went to a Bedouin village where they cooked us dinner and finished with a belly-dancer show, which was fun. This was a long day, and we didn't get back to our hotel until midnight. It was one of my teammate's birthday, so we all went out to celebrate and see downtown Tel Aviv and had a great time.

Day 5 was our first day off from practice after nine straight days of practicing, and it was great to get a little break. We went to the Northeastern part of Israel and went jeep riding, bike riding and repelling down 100 meters of mountain, which was terrifying! As soon as we finished that, we went to the Sea of Galilee and hung out on the beach and had dinner with the entire delegation. Once we finished dinner, we got with our groups, gathered in a circle and told everyone about our favorite and most meaningful part of the trip thus far. Once that was over we were all very tired and ready to go back. After a two-hour bus ride, we got back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby for a bit as a team. Then we went to bed.

Steven

July 6 - Looking back on training camp, it's funny how the guys' attitudes change when they realize all they have been learning actually works. We scrimmaged a bunch of guys in Philly - Christmas from Temple was among them. I remember feeling so accomplished when a play-call was run properly and it actually worked!

I can't believe I'm finally in Israel! The plane ride over here took quite a bit out of me! I sat next to the cutest little girl, Yasmine. She slept on my lap and when she wasn't sleeping, she was the best airplane neighbor ever. I can't sleep on planes. I've never been able to, but I actually got about 3 hours of sleep during the 10 hour plane ride. It's been an easy transition to the time change, since I was tired when it was time for sleep anyway! It's about 11:45 here right now, and 4:45 am back in Knoxville.

Today is the first day we will tour the country. I guess they have some neat stuff planned for us. Tonight, we will get the entire US delegation together and all celebrate the 4th of July together. We have about half of the delegation staying with us at our hotel, K'far Maccabiah, for the pre-camp. The rest are staying somewhere else. It's going to be an overwhelming experience seeing all 900 US athletes all together in one banquet hall. I'm taking lots of pictures, and I will try to post some as I put them on my computer. Well....until next time! Wish me luck traveling and touring thru the desert!

Jacqui

July 1 - How's it going Knoxville? It's Wednesday and I'm sitting here in Philly right now waiting to head to practice. We have one practice today at 1:30 p.m., and then we get the rest of the day to relax and get our legs back. Yesterday we had our second day of two-a-day practices. We started off at 9 a.m. and practiced till 11 a.m. and just reviewed the plays getting ready for the scrimmage we had last night. We played a against a group of Philadelphia's finest former college players. Their team had players like Dionte Christmas (he kind of had a good game last year against us if you can remember), Mark Tyndale, who was Temple's best player the year we played them in Knoxville, Chris Monroe, who was the all-time leading scorer at George Washington University and Mike Green, the point guard from Butler University was also on their team. So overall I would say they had a pretty talented team. We ended up winning the game 83-76, I scored 10 points had five rebounds and three assists so overall I played very well.

Today, like I said, we have practice at 1:30 p.m. until about 3:30 or 4 p.m. Following practice we have a dinner where my dad is going to be speaking to a group of prominent Jewish men in Philadelphia. Once we are finished with that, we are going to go out in downtown Philadelphia and celebrate one of our teammate's birthdays and enjoy our last taste of the USA before we head to Israel for three weeks. I'm very excited about our trip--not too thrilled we are going to be on a plane for 12 hours, but hopefully I can sleep through at least half of it. I'll make sure to write one more update before we head to Israel so you guys know what's going on. Thanks for reading and I'll update you soon.

Steven

June 29 - Today (Monday) is the first day of two days where we have two-a-day practices. This morning we went from 9-11 a.m. and basically reviewed all of the plays we put in Sunday night. And we added a couple more things; we put in the Tennessee pressure sets and a couple of other different sets we run. This morning was basically getting us ready for tonight, when we will be doing some intra-squad scrimmaging. All we've done today is sleep and rest our legs so we can have a good, solid practice tonight. Not much going on these first couple days except for practicing, eating and sleeping--sounds like all I do during basketball season at Tennessee! Thats all I got for these first two days. I'll make sure to let you all know how the practice tonight goes and how tomorrow's sessions go. Thanks for reading, and I'll keep you all posted.

Steven

June 28 - This is Steven Pearl checking in from Philadelphia. We are arrived Sunday morning around noon and waited on the rest of the team to get in. The first day wasn't very eventful. We got into the airport and then headed to the hotel and got something to eat with some of my teammates who were already at the hotel waiting on everyone to show up. All we had planned was a practice from 7-9 p.m. at LaSalle University where our assistant coach, Harris Adler, works. Sunday night was pretty interesting. We got back to the hotel after practice and had food waiting on us there. As a team, we wanted to eat together. Well, there was no common area in the hotel where we were allowed to eat, so we decided to park ourselves in the middle of the lobby on the stairs and the grand piano and eat as a team! The management was not happy to say the least, and not too accommodating either. Not everyone can be as nice as us in the South, I guess!

June 24 - Hey guys! I'm new to this whole blogging thing, so bear with me as I try and learn the particulars! I am so excited to be writing this blog for UT! I hope you all are as excited to hear about our experiences are we are to be actually experiencing them! It is such an honor to be going to the Maccabi Games and represent the United States, and even though I won't be doing much towards the "Gold Medal Cause," I'm definitely pumped to be a small part of it! Keep checking back for more posts! They will be more frequent starting Sunday when we get to Philly!

Jacqui