My friend Sean McCaw, a former professional basketball player and coach in Germany and now a professional basketball Scout for the Science City Jena Basketball Club in Germany wants to give away a BRAND NEW shiny pair of Hops sneakers. You’ve probably never heard of this brand yet, so here is a little background info.

Hops Sportswear Ltd is a family owned Business based in Melbourne Australia. 2 years in the making this original brand was dreamt up in New Zealand, developed in Australia, designed in Italy and built in China. Hops was launched in November 2007. They have their own patented ‘Medial Wing’ technology that provides optimum stability throughout the light weight HOPS product, without taking away from the strength and durability of Hops footwear. Hops is now available in all of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada in the USA.

“We are passionate about providing great product at the right price point. Whilst continuing to develop bigger and better lines of footwear tailored to the basketball marketplace. With ongoing original designs and functionality to our product we look forward with much anticipation the challenge ahead of  becoming an established maker of basketball specific footwear.”

View the Hops Collection below

I have not tried them yet, but they look so comfortable. I wish I could enter the contest! So do you want in?

March Madness Hops Sneaker Contest Rules

Contest Start: March 26th, 2009

Contest End: April 8th, 2009

The winner will be drawn on April 8th, 2009.

How to Enter:

1. You earn one entry by simply making a comment to this post/contest. (write a comment of which HOP shoe you like the most)

The winner will be selected on April 8th 2009. The winner will be announced on Basketball Overseas and in the newsletter. So please subscribe to our newsletter to enter the contest and find out if you’ve won!

The winner has 3 days to confirm by contacting me. Please have ready your address and shoe size.  If the first winner does not confirm or contact me, another contestant will be chosen.

This is a worldwide contest and the shoes can be sent to anywhere in the world!

Good luck!!

“Hey sneaker heads. Just want to tell you a little bit about Hops. I love my Hops and I had a few pairs before I started working with the company. They are VERY stable and I especially like how they look. I am not the tech wiz, as a player, its just important for me that they fit well and they look good haha. Hops fills all those criteria for me. If you have any questions please feel free to visit our homepage on www.hopsportswear.de or find us on Facebook and Myspace and write me. Thanks for taking interest in Hops and I know the lucky winner will be satisfied! - Sean“

How To Attract a Basketball Sponsorship

Whoever said that if you wanted something in life then you have to go and get it was not far wrong. Nothing comes easily and we all have to work for everything we get, especially in this day and age when it is absolutely impossible to fight your way through the competition without putting yourself at the forefront of everything! Every aspect of life is like this today, and education is no different. Those who want to get ahead have to fight for it. There are most definitely subtle ways of doing this though, especially when it comes to attracting scholarships and sponsorships for college.

Every individual has a talent, whether they know it or not. It may be your basketball talent, and arts talent, or a practical talent. Some people know of those talents and can use them in the degree of their choice when they get to college. However, it is usually a question of whether or not they can afford to go rather than if they want to. Funding is a problem because education is so expensive, and so the majority of people are seeking an answer to their prayer through scholarships or sponsorship from a large company. Logically thinking, though, if you apply for one of the above amongst thousands of other, what are the chances of your voice being heard? If you do not want to take the risk of it being silenced, you can make things happen on your own!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a little self-promotion. You do not have to be arrogant and conceited, nor outgoing and confident either for that matter. You just need a little ingenuity and careful thought to help get yourself noticed. Here are just a few of the things that you can do to get scoutings reaching out to you.

If you are traveling overseas for the first time to play basketball it would be smart to do some luggage packing planning. Nowadays there are more restrictions when you fly, especially regards to weight, hand baggage amount and check-in. Normally, international flights allow passengers more weight because of the distances.

On trans-atlantic flights to anywhere in Europe you are allowed on average:

2 Bags Check-In (Max weight each: 50 pounds (23 kilos)
1 Handband (Purses, briefcases and backpacks count as one)

At first that might seem sufficient to you but once you begin packing — some things might change
Continue Reading ->

Have you had the bad experience of being on a team where the team didn’t pay? Well it actually happens more than you think. I have had the displeasure of being on two teams that paid extremely late and to me it felt the same. But not being paid at all for your hard work is should not be tolerated. I have been meaning to write about this topic during the last year but not sure how to approach it. But those teams who don’t pay should be noted and exposed.

The last thing I would like to see is another player suffer the same. More people should speak up. Which brings me to this post, over at Eurobasket someone has posted a few teams that don’t pay. Of course things could change a year later, but it is best to find out first if personnel has changed before you head off to the same team.

Here is the list:

KC Dombovar (Hungary) - my friend can’t get over 6000$ and there are many cases in the courts there.

Unia Tarnow (Poland) - no money at all

Polonia Warszawa (Poland) - this season is beter but in the past it was terrible

Stal Ostrow Wielkopolski (Poland) - they’re not paying last paychecks

Please add to the list, it will be anonymous!

Athletic Scholarships
Do Scholarships Just Happen??… NO

Most Parents Rarely Know…
how to get their son or daughter an athletic basketball scholarship to help pay for college. In fact, very few high school coaches even know enough to help a great college-bound athlete get recruited – beyond pointing them out to a few college coaches they personally know. Athletes who should have been recruited graduate … unrecruited.

You Can Be An Exception.
Find out how basketball athletic recruiting really works. You can learn the secrets to getting recruited from Jon Fugler & Ron Johnston, co-Authors of The Recruit-Me Athletic Scholarship System. They’ll show you how to run your own campaign using their step-by-step recruiting system – for a fraction of the cost of a recruiting service or consultant. There are a lot of companies out there that promise you will get recruited by using their services, but as I always recommend you can do so much better by doing it yourself. Only you know how to “market” yourself!

We’ve partnered with Recruit-Me to bring this information to you.

Do you think that basketball is life? For most basketball players, basketball is there life. At one point in my life when I was younger I thought the same thing..All I wanted to do was play and play and everything basketball.

There are many great stories of basketball players and their lives, their success, their motivation and greatness. A new website A Players Life, gives the inside depth of basketball players around the world and what makes them very special.

These basketball photos and basketball stories are very inspirational to read. Take a look at APlayersLife.com and you can even submit your own story!

Today is (RED) Friday! I want to support the foundation for curing AIDS by designing a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse..Make mine red website is where you can design your own converse starting at $60

(my original design :))
Join the Red Campaign and purchase on behalf of the cause!