Cornfields to City of Lights –
Gutsy Globetrotter Breaks Barriers In Basketball
“What kind of operation?” Mom inquired
“Will she walk again?” Dad asked the doctors.
What if I couldn’t play basketball? I fell into a restless sleep with my legs trapped in traction. The phone ringing beside my hospital bed woke me at midnight.
“Allo, dis ze trainer for Asnières Club de Basket. We want you play in Paris?”
“What? I can’t understand you.”
“You play basket in France wiz us?”
“Yes, but I have a back problem.” I said.
“What you say? No problem? We pay you go back. We pay plane. We pay flat and car. ”
“No. It is my health.”
“’Ealth? Sink about it. I call few days.”
I hung up the phone, bewildered. He was talking about the star forward. Not me, the invalid, who couldn’t crawl to the bathroom.
Weeks later I had rehabilitated from a slipped disk in time to debut in America’s first Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL), but my team declared bankruptcy at Christmas. I was one of the causalities, limping from a bad back and broken heart. However, when Francis, the French coach, called back the next summer, I was ready to forfeit all to embark on an odyssey playing basketball abroad.
“What about your coaching contract?” my dad asked when I broke the news.
“I got out of it,” I answered tying my shoelaces. I was dressed in shorts, T-shirt and high-tops, always ready for a game.
My dad rattled off arguments as to why I should quit playing professional ball. He was right. I would never make money, or have job security.
“What about your back?” he asked.
My back. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw my crippled body strapped to a white hospital bed. My mind echoed Dad’s words, “No, no, no,” but my heart spoke louder, “Go, go, go.”
“When are you going to get a real job?”
“Dad, I’m only 23. How many chances will I have to play? To live in a new country, meet new people?”
My dad, first to disagree with my decision, was also the first to help me to prepare. I shot baskets; my dad rebounded in a musty fieldhouse as stifling as a sauna.
But what was I thinking? I dropped out of French class in school and had no idea where Paris was. In 1980, small town midwestern girls rarely left the State and never crossed continents. My friends, also clueless, told me to pack tampons and toilet paper as if I were moving to a Third World Country.
A week later, standing in a strange airport, my heart pounding, I spotted a man, waving a sign printed, ASNIÉRES, and yelling, “Potreesha!”.
I thought my dream to play basketball abroad had come true when my plane touched down in Europe. But when I looked out Francis’ car window and saw little people pecking cheeks and scurrying down cobblestone streets with baseball bats (baguettes) slung over their shoulder, it hit me, “Oh my God, I’ve landed on another planet.”
For the next six hours, I smiled and struggled to understand the conversation over dinner. First we drank the apéritif. Then wine with fish. Wine and meat. Wine and cheese. Dessert and champagne. I stared at the claret liquid, debating what to do. I grew up in a coach’s family, where drinking was taboo. How could I imbibe alcohol in front of my coach? Yet to avoid offending the hostess, I tipped my glass at regular intervals. Alarmingly, as soon as my glass was half empty, Francis filled it again.
My stomach ached from the new foods; my head pounded from the new words. And our first practice almost never started. A dozen players greeted one another by kissing each other on the cheeks four times. On our first road trip, before boarding a caravan of cars driving us to Belgium, we repeated the ritual under a street lamp. Then I hopped in Francis’s car, whisking us through Paris as the early morning mist rose above the Arch of Triumph and the deserted Champs Elysees.
Near the border, Francis asked, “You have your passport?”
“Passport? No, what do I need my passport for?”
“Customs!” Francis pulled the car off the side of the road.
“Dehors!” he shouted, his face crimson. “Out.”
I feared he would abandon me on the roadside. Instead, he opened the trunk and pointed.
I crawled in, folding my long limbs into a ball, imagining the news headlines, “American superstar asphyxiated when smuggled across the border in the boot of a car.”
During our first game, I was so rattled from the ride in the trunk that my hands shook. A teammate came in off the bench and whispered, “No pass. Shoot.”
I swished the next ten shots. We beat Holland in the final. At the awards ceremony when they announced, “Patreesha Mackencee, meilleure joueuse,” a pair of hands pushed me forward to accept the MVP trophy. I smiled as I shook hands with the tournament director, and then turned to face my teammates’ cold stares, longing to crawl under the floorboards.
Later, I joined the others in the bar, a standard fixture in European gyms where sports were as social as they were competitive. There, submerged in a cloud of smoke, teammates leaned on the table listening to a story. Just as I sat down, they burst out laughing.
Living in a foreign country was like always being the only one who doesn’t get the joke.
Still, at the end of the year, I did not want to leave France and felt devastated when the French Basketball Federation banned foreigners. Luckily, I received another garbled phone call in guttural German. What play ball in Germany? Learn a new language? Adopt a new culture? No way! But I boarded a train, crossed the border and fell in love with Marburg, the fairytale town immortalized by the Grimm Brothers.
…Ah, but that is yet another gutsy story.
***
Patricia McKinzie-Lechault Bio:
Pat McKinzie, a pioneer in the early infancy of Title IX, was the first female athletic scholarship recipient in Illinois, drafted into the first women’s professional basketball league, and part of the premier wave of American ball players in Europe. As a globetrotter, she traveled across Europe and lived in Paris and Dijon, France and Marburg, Germany, and Geneva, Switzerland. The columnist turned blogger, teaches and coaches at International School of Geneva. She lives outside Geneva with her French husband, Gerald Lechault, CEO of a Swiss printing company. Raised abroad, her Third Culture Kids, a daughter, now a pediatrician, and son, finishing his teaching degree, reside in the USA. Her book Home Sweet Hardwood, A Title IX Trailblazer Breaks Cultural Barriers Through Basketball will be published soon.
Please visit Patricia’s wonderful X-pat files from overseas website and join her on Twitter @PattyMacKZ. You can also join her on Facebook.
***
Sonia Marsh Says: I loved your “Gutsy” attitude and what you said to your “Dad, I’m only 23. How many chances will I have to play? To live in a new country, meet new people?”
Obviously you never regretted your decision to move, and now live in Geneva, married to a French man. What a complete change you made in your early twenties.
***
Please leave comments and questions for Patricia below. She will be over to respond.
***
Voting for your favorite October “My Gutsy Story” starts on November 1st-14th. The winner will be announced on November 15th.
Do you have a “My Gutsy Story” you’d like to share?
To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here.
Three other October stories are up. So far we have Duke Marsh “My Gutsy Story” and Don Darkes “My Gutsy Story,” and Kim Brower’s “My Gutsy Story,” and Doreen Cox, “My Gutsy Story.”
I hope you enjoy the “My Gutsy Story” series and share with others through the links below. Perhaps you’d like to submit your own. Thanks.
Hannah says
Love it Patricia!
I just read it with my friend sitting by me and she thought I was crazy for laughing out loud :). And I cannot image leaving by myself in 3 years to live abroad. Not knowing anything. Crazy. Can’t wait to read more!
Pat says
Thanks! Ah yes, Hannah, but you always knew I was CRAZY! Be sure to pass this on to your sorority sisters and old ruby teammates.
Mary Hertslet says
Patricia,
I really enjoy reading about a person who’s not afraid of taking advantage of their opportunities, and who follows their passions. It did take guts to open yourself to say yes to such an adventure. Good for you!
I wrote my gutsy story in July,2012. “Life Lessons Learned”. I was also 23 years old.
Best wishes.
Mary Hertslet
Pat says
Thanks Mary! Whenever I am afraid to try something new today, I look back at my past and it gives me courage. Look forward to reading your Life Lessons Learned.
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Tom Lamonica says
Pat, your ability to describe your experiences and relate them to the times and places is interesting. Today’s world is different … young people can “travel the world” with a mouse-click, but, to be honest, some of them feel just as alone and isolated away from family and friends–even if only 100 miles or so from home–as you were 30 years. So your story is relevant, even for today’s 23-year-old.
Pat says
How true Tom and even with the advances of technology,and all the ways today’s youth are linked via email, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, cell phones…nothing matches the human connection, good ol’fashioned one-on-one contact! Thanks for your support in my next gutsy adventure…the book!
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Kathleen Pooler says
I’m so happy to see you here, Patty. You are the epitome of gutsiness in every realm of your life and you show us how it’s done. I love your story and I love to hear about your feisty, fighting spirit which comes out in all you write. I can’t wait to read your memoir. I hope everyone visits your weekly blog for more delightful stories like this one!
Kathleen Pooler recently posted..Lessons from My Nursing Career That Prepared Me for Memoir Writing~Reflections on Transitions
Pat says
Thanks for your support Kathy! Hope you and your family on the East coast are okay and not suffering from too much storm damage.
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Maria DeLanghe says
I can’t wait to read it Pat!
Pat says
Thanks Maria! You will really enjoy reading the book because it will bring back so many memories of your own past growing up in the Midwest and attending ISU.
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Delana says
Patty, this is this first time I’ve heard this part of your story. I admire you even more. I am impatient to read your book now and I assume you’ll announce its debut on your blog. I await. Bisous
Delana recently posted..The Moroccan Two-Step in Four-Four Time
Pat says
Thanks,Delana, but you have your own gutsy story…”so why can’t a 50-year-old woman pack up and move to France?” You did it! I am sure Sonia would welcome hearing your tale!
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Clara Freeman says
You are still a “gutsy lady!” thanks for sharing and the guts to enter the competition-again:)
Clara.
Clara Freeman recently posted..Work Your Dream…
Pat says
Yes and I am blessed to have a gutsy friend like you leading the way! I know that you have had to overcome obstacles every step of the way in your journey to become an advocate for Authentic Women! You should share your own gutsy living story with Sonia!
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Sandra says
The ability to use good judgment in making decisions is one of the most important skills you can possess. On a daily basis, you may be barraged by mundane and potentially life-changing decisions. Making good decisions applies to multiple aspects of your life, including work, health, education, family and personal relationships.
Sandra recently posted..listerine
Pat says
Sandra, I am not sure how good of a decision maker I am for I usually lead with my heart and go more with intuition than perhaps, logical, sound reasoning. But like a cat with nine lives, I always land on my feet!
Pat recently posted..Basketball Lessons Transfer to Medical Career
Sue says
Sis, how fun to guest blog! And I have seen how gutsy you are!
You first inspired me back when we were kids by daring to follow your dream and you inspire me now with your courage in the face of
your adversity. Thanks for being a big sister I can always look up to.
Pat says
And I was able to step up to those gutsy challenges because I always knew my sisters had my back! Thanks for picking me up after every fall and believing in me when I doubted myself.
Pat recently posted..Life is not for the Fainthearted -Everyone is Gutsy
Teresa Cleveland Wendel says
Looking forward to that gutsy story about your sojourn in Germany.
Teresa Cleveland Wendel recently posted..Box Factory Blues–Part 1
Lynne Spreen says
I loved your story, Pat! Although I follow your blog religiously I never heard all this. And well-told, too!
Pat says
Ah yes, Lynne, like you I have a lifetime full of stories to tell…just wished we lived in the same neighborhood so we could share then in person!
Pat recently posted..Life is not for the Fainthearted -Everyone is Gutsy
Pat says
Thanks Teresa. Love your dialogue in Box Factory Blues!
Lady Fi says
What a wonderfully inspiring story!
Lady Fi recently posted..Fifty shades of…
Pat says
Thanks Lady Fi. As a fellow expat, you may also enjoy following my blog. I look forward to following you. Your photographs are astounding!!!
Alexis says
This is such an interesting story Pat! I admire your sense of humor…
Alexis recently posted..Dual Sim Capability – Desired SV by HTC in India
Barbara says
You are definitely gutsy. And also a great example to those afraid to make a leap of faith. Everything happens for a reason and here you are married to a Frenchman living in Geneva. Pretty inspiring!
b
Barbara recently posted..Georgia on My Mind/ 8
Mary says
I cannot wait for the book… You have been an inspiration to me since the days at Hanie Hall. Your strength, discipline and courage confinue to amaze me. You truly are a gifted writer!