A Fish (And Chips) In Water

TigerBlog's feature on Abby Meyers

People in England find the idea of driving more than an hour of so to be unheard of, yet at the same time they're very polite in their criticisms.

When TigerBlog suggested he was going to make a four-hour drive up to Durham, near the Scottish border, to watch a basketball game, the responses he got included "are you bloody mad" and "that's far too far."

These are, of course, the same people to whom time is best measured in centuries. They have a saying: The English think 200 miles is a long way, and the Americans think that 200 years is a long time.

TigerBlog has spent his entire adult life driving long distances to games. To him, this was nothing different than driving up to Cornell. And yet, any time he mentioned it, the reaction was one of incredulity, with a confused look and a random "blimey" thrown in for good measure. 

And then, what came next? "You want to take the A414 to the A10 to the A1 to the M1. Of course, there might be traffic on the A1, but you want to avoid the M3 and the M25 at all costs."

Blimey, indeed.

TB did make the trip. And why? It was to see the London Lions play at the Durham Palatinates in the Women's British Basketball League. 

London, if you didn't realize it, features Abby Meyers, one of the best players in Princeton women's basketball history, plays for the Lions in her first experience in overseas professional basketball. This comes after her first experience as a player in the WNBA. 

Back when he was a kid, TigerBlog read Bill Bradley's book "Life On The Run." At the time, he had no way of knowing what Bradley's college exploits would come to mean to him as an adult. Or that he'd meet Bradley many times, for that matter.

The book is Bradley's memories of a three-week period during the 1973-74 season with the New York Knicks. It painted a pretty inside picture of what it was like to be an NBA player during that time (including when the teams used to fly on commercial flights). 

As he wrote the story on Meyers, he thought that "Life On The Run" would be a great title. He even started it with this quote from Bradley's book:

“Victory is fraught with as much danger as glory. Victory has very narrow meanings and, if exaggerated or misused, can become a destructive force. The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own. Beyond all the years of practice and all the hours of glory waits that inexorable terror of living without the game.” — Bill Bradley, Life On The Run

That's pretty intense stuff. It also pretty accurately describes Abby Meyers' approach to being a pro basketball player. 

It's been quite a 21-month stretch for Meyers. In that time, she's worn five different uniforms, that of Princeton, Maryland, the Dallas Wings, the Washington Mystics and now the London Lions. It hasn't been that long since she was becoming the Ivy League's unanimous Player of the Year while putting up 29 in a first-round NCAA tournament win over Kentucky.

She is now playing for the Lions in the WBBL, as well as in the EuroCup. It's her first experience of overseas professional basketball, and she's taken to it like a fish (and chips?) in water.

As TB saw her play last week, he was struck by how close the Lions seem to be, how well-coached they seem to be (and how much the coach, Stella Kaltsidou, looks like Tiger head coach Carla Berube), how easily Meyers has fit in and how much she is getting out of the experience.

In the end, it was a great experience for TB as well. 

TB got to see two games, the one in a tiny gym against Durham and then at the Copper Box Arena in London, which housed Olympic team handball in 2012 and Princeton men's basketball a year ago, where he saw a game unlike any he's ever seen before (you have to read the story to see why). He had a chance to spend some time with Meyers and meet her coaches, her teammates and some of the team's fans. 

He was struck by how grounded Meyers is and how much she is focused on the all-around experience, not just the basketball piece. She's also clearly bought in to what it means to be an American pro basketball player in Europe. 

You can't watch her in her London uniform without feeling her love for the game and her joy at where she is right now. It was more than worth the long drive.

This is the second-to-last entry for 2023. Coming tomorrow will be TB's annual Year-In-Review entry. 

While it won't make the list of top Princeton Athletic events, TB's time with the Meyers and the London Lions was definitely a top 10 moment.