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A pretty cool history of international players on the Lady Zag team from Jim Allen at the Spokesman-Review.
Entire Article Link: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...ens-basketbal/
Take a look, it is a pretty interesting read.
ZagDad
According to Gonzaga women’s basketball coach Lisa Fortier, one of the best things about foreign athletes is they don’t know the difference between a mid-major and a drum major. And while American teens know that GU doesn’t have a football team or a marching band, Australians and Canadians could not care less. “They just look at the school for what it is,” said Fortier, whose program has found success partly by just being itself: unpretentious and family-oriented, with a near-perfect graduation rate for its student-athletes.
Winning matters, too, but that takes care of itself when your players aren’t homesick and pining to go back to Australia or Germany for the holidays. “They’ll go home with a teammate or to a coach’s house – it feels like they have a family here,” Fortier said. “That’s why we’ve done so well with foreign players.”
“It’s against the rules to watch club games,” said Fortier, who like her rivals relies mostly on film and in-home interviews to assess foreign players. That’s harder than it sounds. Cultural differences are subtle, and it takes a keen eye to pick them out. “Players from different countries respond differently to coaching, and Australian kids and different from Canadians,” Fortier said. “Then again, Texas kids are different than California kids.”
Winning matters, too, but that takes care of itself when your players aren’t homesick and pining to go back to Australia or Germany for the holidays. “They’ll go home with a teammate or to a coach’s house – it feels like they have a family here,” Fortier said. “That’s why we’ve done so well with foreign players.”
“It’s against the rules to watch club games,” said Fortier, who like her rivals relies mostly on film and in-home interviews to assess foreign players. That’s harder than it sounds. Cultural differences are subtle, and it takes a keen eye to pick them out. “Players from different countries respond differently to coaching, and Australian kids and different from Canadians,” Fortier said. “Then again, Texas kids are different than California kids.”
Take a look, it is a pretty interesting read.
ZagDad