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Young focusing on Sooners after turning down U19 | NewsOK.com
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AdaSooner
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I have already gone on record in expressing my views about what Trae should do about a chance to play on the U19 team this summer. Now, I'm giving him props for making a decision that is clearly in his team's best interest, not necessarily what's best for him.
This young man is a born leader. He's exactly what OU needed to turn last year's disappointing season into one we can all be proud of. Getting ahead of myself by predicting a successful season with a return to the NCAA tourney? Not at all. This team has too much talent to believe they will fail again. One of them is Trae Young, a do it all point guard who will make sure that doesn't happen.
This young man is a born leader. He's exactly what OU needed to turn last year's disappointing season into one we can all be proud of. Getting ahead of myself by predicting a successful season with a return to the NCAA tourney? Not at all. This team has too much talent to believe they will fail again. One of them is Trae Young, a do it all point guard who will make sure that doesn't happen.
I'll tell you my story about visiting Egypt but it doesn't have anything to do with sports or basketball.....
I was an avid scuba diver, and have a divemaster certification. I was part of a group who took a lot of extreme dives to remote places. I just so happened to be on a live-aboard dive boat in the Red Sea on 9/11. We were somewhere around the border between Egypt and Sudan when word hit us about the 9/11 attacks. It was late afternoon there and we were told that a plane was shot down trying to fly into the White House in addition to the World Trade Center. I was with 3 other Americans, but most of the other divers were from Germany or the UK....... maybe 20 of us in total. The crew on the boat were all Muslims and they were more scared than we were. Our only form of communications was thru short wave radio and we were eventually able to hear some BBC radio broadcasts.
The dive was aborted and they took us to shore where we got on a bus headed to an airport in Egypt. We were stopped at various checkpoints where they had several armed guards with automatic weapons. They all had a couple of bandoliers across their chest and looked very intimidating.... even to me as an ex-Marine. I remember one who had a hand grenade and was twirling it on his finger like it was a toy. They searched each of us at every checkpoint. It took a couple of days to get to the town of Hurghada Egypt where we spent the night before going to the airport the next day. One of the U.K. divers loaned me a rugby shirt and advised me not to speak because my Okie accent would tip off the locals I was an American..... we didn't know what the locals thought of Americans. We had no idea who was behind the 9/11 attack and whether a war had broken out. When we got to the airport the next day there were dogs and soldiers with automatic weapons everywhere, but we were able to get a flight back to London with no problems.
It took us a week to get a flight back to the U.S. but again we had no problems. It still was something I'll never forget.
I'm happy Trae chose to stay at OU so that he can go on the trip to Australia and New Zealand.
I was an avid scuba diver, and have a divemaster certification. I was part of a group who took a lot of extreme dives to remote places. I just so happened to be on a live-aboard dive boat in the Red Sea on 9/11. We were somewhere around the border between Egypt and Sudan when word hit us about the 9/11 attacks. It was late afternoon there and we were told that a plane was shot down trying to fly into the White House in addition to the World Trade Center. I was with 3 other Americans, but most of the other divers were from Germany or the UK....... maybe 20 of us in total. The crew on the boat were all Muslims and they were more scared than we were. Our only form of communications was thru short wave radio and we were eventually able to hear some BBC radio broadcasts.
The dive was aborted and they took us to shore where we got on a bus headed to an airport in Egypt. We were stopped at various checkpoints where they had several armed guards with automatic weapons. They all had a couple of bandoliers across their chest and looked very intimidating.... even to me as an ex-Marine. I remember one who had a hand grenade and was twirling it on his finger like it was a toy. They searched each of us at every checkpoint. It took a couple of days to get to the town of Hurghada Egypt where we spent the night before going to the airport the next day. One of the U.K. divers loaned me a rugby shirt and advised me not to speak because my Okie accent would tip off the locals I was an American..... we didn't know what the locals thought of Americans. We had no idea who was behind the 9/11 attack and whether a war had broken out. When we got to the airport the next day there were dogs and soldiers with automatic weapons everywhere, but we were able to get a flight back to London with no problems.
It took us a week to get a flight back to the U.S. but again we had no problems. It still was something I'll never forget.
I'm happy Trae chose to stay at OU so that he can go on the trip to Australia and New Zealand.
SoonerBounce13
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wow. Did you guys have any conversations with the muslim crew members?
I would love to dive around the newly identified city remains off of Egypts Med coast.
Yes. They had a lead guy who did get his degree from the U.S. and he spoke very good English. I can't remember speaking to any of the others in the crew captain, cooks, etc.). The lead guy's job was to interface with the passengers. He was the one who said the crew was more scared than we were. He explained that Muslims had many sects and most of them were peace loving.
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