Life after Trinity has proven to be more adventurous than I could have ever hoped. Of course, playing basketball at Trinity has given me a lifetime of memories and friends. No matter where I go people always have questions of what it was like to play college basketball. Fortunately for me I played with some of the best players and people, and I still miss it.
I stayed at Trinity for one more year to complete my Masters in Teaching and then began my professional career at Sam Houston High School on the east side of San Antonio. While my first teaching position was difficult for me (as most first teaching positions are) I found that I truly enjoyed the experience. Some of the best students I've ever taught were from there. And you are always shaped by your first teaching experience. I was able to stay involved with basketball by coaching a local AAU team with my students.
After spending three years at Sam Houston I then moved to Switzerland to continue teaching at an International American boarding school. Here my perspectives on the world began to change dramatically. Not only was I surrounded by the idyllic scenery of the Italian lakes region of southern Switzerland and northern Italy but I was going to be living in a dorm sized apartment with students on all sides. Teaching during the day, checking for clean beds over lunch, holding study hall at night, putting out snacks for 40+ dorm residents, then going around at 11:00 pm to make sure lights are out, finding some kids sneaking out and finding others studying for tests. Some days involved coaching basketball, others involved week long travels to Lyon, Zurich, Athens, Warsaw and Krakow all with students. We even had a Ski-week spent in the French speaking Swiss Alps where I learned to ski from local instructors and from more experienced colleagues. The school provides the most unique, rewarding, and tiring experiences I've ever had. Weekends could be spent writing 80 paragraphs of student comments or walking the canal lined streets of Venice. I drove the Autobahn, cruised through Tuscany and learned to make pasta, went to teacher conferences in Paris, and coached basketball tournaments in Geneva. My students came from all over the world and were many times more grown-up at age 16 than I was at age 25. Some students were worth half a billion dollars or more and others had family's who mortgaged their homes and businesses to send their children. I loved the mixing of cultures that inevitably happens at a school with over 40 nationalities. Some of my favorites were watching the Turkish male students always try to date the female Brazilian students. The Brazilians being the loudest group on campus. The Italians with the best clothes. Mexicans speaking Spanish to Brazilians replying in Portugese while the Italians explain to you what they were talking about. You learn to be proud of being an American for our own brand of culture and you also learn how similar we all are.
After being in Switzerland for two difficult and rewarding and entertaining years I left to spend a year in Bratislava, Slovakia at a different international school. Bratislava, being located in central Europe, is a great place to live. It is only 45 minutes to Vienna, 2 hours to Budapest and 3 hours to Prague. But best of all, Bratislava is a cute little town with its own identity. The students at this school were from many places as well but were mostly from Bratislava, Germany, and Korea. The German students were there because VW has a factory outside town. The same went for our Korean students as there was a Samsung and Kia factory nearby. While the size of the school was much smaller and I had to teach a wider variety of subjects (IB Economics year 1 and 2, Government, USA History, and AP World History) the experience was no less rewarding. I was able to coach the Girls Varsity team and had a blast. My apartment was formerly a government officials house. This official was not of the communist party and was thrown out and replaced by several "loyal" residents. During those communist years anti-communist artwork was hidden in the basement and when the Wall came down the artwork came up from the basement to hang on my walls. The magnitude of this effort was not lost on me but could never be fully understood either. It did add to the way in which I viewed the people of Slovakia. They have a perseverance and kindness unmatched in my travels.
But the best basketball experience I've had since leaving Trinity was also in Bratislava. Since I no longer had dorm responsibilities like I did in Switzerland I was free in the evenings to join a league team. So I joined up with the top City league. Europe organizes its leagues by division with the top division being paid professionals. The division I joined was just below the top division and had many (older) players that used to play in the Extra Liga as it was called. Basketball became the universal language. I didn't speak Slovak and most of my teammates didn't speak English yet the signals for basketball were all the same plus a few words don't require translation, such as "foul" and "jumpball". I was told either, "easy, easy" or "go, go, go" with a dramatic pointing gesture. Whatever preconceptions one might have of a former Soviet school gymnasium is likely a good description of where we played. If you can imagine a gym that was built in 1960 with no bleachers, out of bounds was a wall just 12 inches from the line, and old gymnastic ropes hung from the ceilings. The floors were wooden and occasionally had floor boards missing. The backboards were wooden and the rims were sometimes bent. Most of the lights worked. Score was kept on a clipboard and time was kept with a stopwatch. The schools, all in current use but would make you question your tax dollars, were all surrounded by Soviet era communist apartment buildings of which you cannot tell apart from each other (that was the purpose of being "common") other than the graffiti. I'd arrive on a public tram that would drop me off about half a mile from the gym, and I'd walk through the dark and often times the snow to a match. It felt like I was in high school. It was a great feeling. Despite the gym and neighborhood's outward appearance, the basketball was good, very good. Like I said, it has been the closest thing to the quality of basketball and the camaraderie of our college teams. We finished the season in 3rd place and to my surprise I was voted the league MVP by all the other teams. Perhaps we get better with age or perhaps I was still a bit younger than most. Nonetheless, the real lasting memories for me were after the games when we would go to the local pub for dinner and a beer. This was where we'd watch hockey or soccer on TV and discuss the game and our lives in broken English and broken Slovak (Google Translator isn't that good yet). Their generosity and good nature is something I'll cherish forever.
During my year in Bratislava I frequently traveled to London to visit my girlfriend who was teaching at a school there. Over the course of the school year we found ourselves falling more and more in love. We looked at each others school to see if there would be a vacancy. We instead went to a job fair. This is how we made our way to Singapore where we've been since July of the past year. We are quite liking it here and will be here for at least another year if not several more as we look to settle down sometime soon. Another country, another school with students from all over the world. I am always amazed at the varied experiences of my colleagues and students. Just when you think you've got a good handle on the way the world works you are encountered with a completely different culture. The city is warm year-round as it is on the equator but not unbearably hot like a South Texas summer might be. So far the city has been a great place to visit nearby countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, where we spent Christmas and New Year's. I've recently joined a team in the top city league. The new season starts this month. I can only hope for a similar experience as I had with my Bratislava teammates.
I'm amazed at how quickly life has moved since leaving Trinity but I'm also thankful for all of the amazing experiences I've had. I think fondly of my time playing ball and hope to come back some day in time for the Alumni game to give it one more go.
-Shane Fitts '04
