Hoop dreamin' with Mike Fratello

Hey,

Well, here we are. Summer is scheduled to leave Kiev tomorrow, when rain and 73F are predicted. After that, the 5-day forecast never calls for anything warmer than 75F. We're hoping this means an end to the summer sweat. But all the while I have to remind myself that in January these will seem like the best of days.

So, Mike Fratello? Well the story begins this way: My friend Ilya- the English professor turned BBC cub translator/reporter -became my 'guy' for sporting events when we lived here before. We went to soccer and basketball games together. I enjoyed getting to know the sports teams of the city with him.

Those of you who have tracked with us know Ilya as the guy who can argue for any conspiracy theory and can argue AGAINST any theory as well. I have fun crossing rhetorical swords with him.

But it all came to a head a few weeks ago. He invited us over for dinner with his family, the first time we were getting a chance to meet his wife and daughter. We went and had a good time. They then wanted to see us off at the subway and so we took the long way through a park so they could stroll with their daughter. While walking Ilya asked me where in the Bible does it say things like homosexuality are a sin. I quickly dialed through my smart phone to Leviticus and showed him. "Oh," was his only response.

When I got home I also copied to him some verses out of Romans which are very blunt on that whole topic. He wrote back quite upset, "How could a 'God of LOVE...?'" was the response he fired at me. I felt bad. I was only trying to answer his question and I'm not going to apologize: I didn't write it. (What's more, I think you better be pretty sure who did or didn't write it before you start trying to bend the meaning...but I digress).

Anyway, we had plans to go on BBQ outing with him and his wife and daughter and I sort of wondered if that would now fall through. In fact, his wife had to go out of town on business on the day we'd planned the outing and I thought, "Well, that's that..."

Jump to today, 2 weeks after the fateful email. Ilya called. He invited me to a basketball game. It seems that Ukraine, in a bid to make a showing in 2012 in London, has hired Mike Fratello to coach their national basketball team. "Would you like to go see Mike Fratello's futile attempts today?" Ilya asked in his very good English.

Uh, well, "YEAH!" I said, not caring if I sounded a little too eager. So, my hope is to put a picture of me and/or Ilya with Mike Fratello. I'll add it to my Jerry and Carl Lewis collection. The point of the picture, besides saying "Wow, he's SO cool!" (me, I mean, not Mike Fratello) will be to remember to pray for Ilya. He believes in God, heaven, hell, eternal punishment and eternal reward. What about Jesus? Nope, that was a conspiracy...

Thanks for reading along. We'll keep you posted.

ps. sorry. Ilya insisted on taking the picture instead of being in it. He seemed to feel funny about getting in the picture with someone famous...even if they were only famous in America. Anyway, that's me and Mike to my right in the blurry picture. An interesting bonus was seeing Eddie Pinckney, (you remember Villanova v. Georgetown from 1985, right?) who also coaches the Ukrainian team with Fratello. He is barely visible in picture seemingly coming out of my left shoulder.