Nancy Liu has often woken up during the past six months not knowing where she was. All she knew was she was somewhere in Europe — and that’s exactly how she wanted it.
Liu is an uncommonly dedicated sports fan, even by basketball junkie standards. She quit her job and visited 33 European cities in 63 days from March to May to watch professional basketball games in person.
“I love the swishing sound of a basketball going through the net. And I’m uncomfortable if I don’t play basketball for two or three days,” said Liu, who started playing basketball in the fifth grade when she attended an international school in Beijing.
Already familiar with the American basketball scene, including the professional NBA and the college game, Liu said her passion for the sport took her to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean to explore an area she was less familiar.
Liu quit her job at an international trading company and started to map out her plan to visit as many European teams and leagues as possible.
Helped by the many friends she made while volunteering at various local sporting events, including the Jones Cup basketball tournament, the Kaohsiung World Games and the Taipei Deaflympics, Liu arranged about 70 percent of her itinerary before departing on what she called “A Basketball Dream — Ballin’ Europe.”
The basketball-loving girl, who majored in applied chemistry at Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, began her basketball pilgrimage by attending a Swiss professional league game in Geneva less than 24 hours after arriving there.
In the following two months, the journey took Liu to numerous cities in eight countries — Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece.
In all, Liu attended 25 games and watched 50 teams play in various European domestic leagues, as well as the Eurocup Finals and the Euroleague Final Four — both top-tier European basketball competitions.
Liu estimated that, on average, she slept less than three hours a night during her stay in Europe and visited as many as three cities in a day.
After the two-month trip, she spent three months in Beijing working as an intern at NBA China and returned to Taiwan for one day before resuming her travels.
This time she visited Turkey for the 2010 FIBA Men’s World Championship and attended all of the tournament’s games, while getting to see her favorite player — Rudy Fernandez of Spain — play in person.
To save money during her European travels, Liu said she spent all but one night staying at friends’ places and ended up spending only around NT$200,000 on the trip.
“Most of my budget was spent on transportation — flight tickets, train tickets and bus fares,” Liu said.
She also had to overcome “the unthinkable” in Europe, such as a French railway strike and the disruption of European air traffic by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that left European skies filled with an impenetrable ash.
Newspapers in Serbia and Greece gave extensive coverage to her ambitious trip, Liu said. She was also interviewed by FIBA during the World Championship.
Liu recalled that her parents expressed concern about the trip when she first brought up the idea, but her father finally gave the go-ahead because “he didn’t want me to miss the opportunity to realize my dream.”
Her European trek has not brought her dream to an end. If anything, it was only the beginning of loftier ambitions, including a return to Europe for next year’s European Championship, which will be held in Lithuania next summer.
Liu’s dream now extends beyond watching basketball games.
“I want to be involved in and initiate basketball-related non-government organization projects which inspire children and the underprivileged through the sport,” said Liu, who described herself as being broke and is looking for a job to support her future plans.
“Basketball has been the inspiration to lift myself out of bed every morning since I was 13. I hope that the sport — and my journey — would be an inspiration for other people as well,” she said.
Jobe Bellingham on Tuesday admitted to having “anxieties” on following in brother Jude’s footsteps after joining Borussia Dortmund in the summer. Jobe Bellingham, 19, is two years younger than Jude Bellingham, who joined Real Madrid in 2023 after three years at Dortmund. A centerpiece of the England national team, Jude Bellingham has emerged as one of the best players in the world in recent seasons. The younger Jobe Bellingham joined Dortmund in June from Sunderland after their promotion to the English Premier League. He admitted he understood what the perception would be ahead of the move to Germany. “It’s something you do think about.
Before Tuesday’s 7-2 win at the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy suggested “most people couldn’t tell you five players on our team.” A look at the standings would indicate more Brewers players soon will be recognized by more fans. After all, it is difficult to overlook a team that not only continues to extend their lead in the National League Central, but also boasts the best record in the majors. “What we’re doing in here right now is special,” right-handed pitcher Freddy Peralta said after allowing only four hits and one run in five innings, while setting a career high with
A baseball team from New Taipei City won the US Pony Palomino Division World Series yesterday in Laredo, Texas, defeating the US West representative team from Azusa, California, 2-1. Ku-Pao Home Economics and Commercial High School earned the right to represent Taiwan in the Pony Palomino (17 to 18 age group) World Series after winning this year's Wang Chen-chih Cup, a competition named after Taiwanese-Japanese baseball legend Wang Chen-chih (王貞治), also known as Sadaharu Oh. In the championship game against Azusa, Ku-Pao's starting pitcher Luo Yu-yan (羅于晏) was erratic early, giving up two hits in the bottom of the first inning, followed
Taiwanese pitcher Teng Kai-wei took the mound in New York on Saturday as the starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants in his MLB season debut against the New York Mets, pitching 3.1 innings and allowing five runs. The Taiwanese right-hander struggled early, giving up three runs in the bottom of the first inning, including a three-run homer to Mets slugger Pete Alonso — his 250th career home run. However, Teng was not fazed and soon found his footing, holding the Mets scoreless in the bottom of the second and third innings. Meanwhile, Mets starter Kodai Senga of Japan made a few errors
RSS