by Kate Rue – teacher, coach, and athletic administrator at Charles Wright Academy in
Tacoma.
Basketball players live by the mantra “Ball is LIfe.” That mindset reflects a universal
understanding that sports brings the world closer together. In August of 2024, the LSU
Women’s Basketball Team began its Summer Tour making stops in 3 countries, 5 cities,
and taking 4 flights within Europe: Croatia (Split and Dubrovnik), Greece (Athens and
Santorini), and London, England. The travel party included 80 total: players, coaches,
support staff, family members, super fans and two Basketball Travelers Inc. (BTI) guides –
myself as the lead guide. Geaux Tigers!
Over the past 25 years I have been fortunate to work as a guide/tournament
director/ambassador for BTI. I’ve worked Division 1 tournaments at Texas Tech and Baylor,
taken foreign basketball teams on tours in the United States competing against D1 teams,
and guided summer foreign basketball tours, like LSU. I love working with these elite
programs and experiencing how they team build and play basketball in new and foreign
settings. Back in the early to mid 2000’s, foreign teams would come to the U.S. and play
exhibition games. One year I had Kosice from Slovakia and we traveled the east coast
playing teams like Univ of North Carolina, Clemson, Liberty, UNC-Charlotte, and Radford
to name a few. Another Slovakian team came to the Midwest a few years later and we
traveled around playing teams including Univ of Illinois, DePaul, Purdue, and Central
Michigan Univ. A Russian team was scheduled to come to the USA to compete and I was
slated to be their guide. The atrocity of 9/11 happened and the Russian team could not get
visas. BTI contractually needed to honor the tour since we had a 10 game schedule
including USC, Univ of Arizona, Arizona State, San Diego State, to name a few. So, I took
on the role of Head Coach, Tour Guide, Driver, and Money Distributor. We gathered former
collegians and a few pros (who I had to pay after each game) and had a successful tour.
Foreign tours are my forte. Here are the teams I have led: Michigan State (Canada),
University of Tennessee-Martin (Scandinavia), University of Washington (Scandinavia),
Florida Atlantic University (Canada), Seattle U (Amsterdam/Paris), University of Alabama
(Canada), Memphis University (Greece), Seattle U (Greece), Boston College (Italy),
Vanderbilt (Italy), and LSU (Croatia/Greece).
Welcome to my Basketball Travelers’ story, a glimpse into my summer with LSU Women’s
Basketball. LSU won the National Championship in 2022 with Angel Reese (now setting
WNBA rookie records with the Chicago Sky) and legendary Coach Kim Mulkey. Kim has
won at every level and with every program that she has coached. As a player at Louisiana
Tech, and later as an assistant there, she won National Championships; her fondness for
Tacoma, she told me, is because they won the championship there in 1988. Kim was at
Baylor for 21 seasons winning two National Championships and then won it all again in her
second year at LSU. Kim is the highest paid women’s coach in Division 1 basketball and is
a powerful, accomplished presence. Everyone wants to know what Kim is like and how she
handled the tour. She was amazing! Kind, down-to-earth, up for adventure, chatted me up
on bus trips, and posed for selfies on Santorini.
Each stop in Europe was filled with sightseeing, food sampling, 5-star hotels, pools, and
luxurious living. In Split, we ziplined with views of the Dalmatic Inland and the Adriatic Sea
and then all 80 of the LSU party went to the beaches to enjoy the beautiful sea. In
Dubrovnik, we walked within the ancient city walls to a famous outdoor basketball court
where the LSU team had a photo shoot with drones while wearing gold attire. Their
brightest star, Flau’jae Johnson, also a well-established rapper and who currently holds a
net worth of $3 million with all her NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals, used the
photoshoot as a backdrop for her millions of social media followers. Since the NCAA
began allowing NIL deals in 2021, LSU athletes have secured nearly 2,000 NIL deals. This
success has allowed LSU to attract top recruits.
Next, we then cruised the Elaphiti Islands and enjoyed sandy beaches, swimming and
excellent seafood. On to Athens, Greece where the team did some community service
work with the Smile of a Child organization. The hotel in Athens was located within walking
distance of the Acropolis and the famous Plaka neighborhood known for shopping and
great outdoor restaurants and cafes. The LSU team also had time with their university
professor who traveled with the tour. The class studied women in sports and the
momentum it is taking with the popularity in women’s viewership. With the backdrop of
the Parthenon, and the 2024 Paris Olympics playing out in the distance, what an awesome
atmosphere to get credit for a college course! Our last stop in Greece was the beautiful
island of Santorini known for its blue domes and whitewashed houses set on the Aegean
Sea. LSU vacationed in style as we went on a sunset dinner catamaran cruise and swam in
the warm volcanic waters off of Athinios Port. LSU hosted a “White Out” dinner the last
evening at Pyrogos Kallistis. Everyone dressed in their all-whites and enjoyed cocktail
hour, and a photo shoot with the team. Mediterranean cuisine and traditional dancing
were on the menu plus the customary plate smashing, with Coach Kim throwing a few
white plates to the ground.
A night in London was our final stop. Upon arrival at London Heathrow, the travel party had
the chance to take the tube into the famous city, sightsee on a Hop-On Hop-Off red double
decker bus, or ride the “Eye of London”, a cantilevered observation wheel on the South
Bank of the River Thames. I spent the evening with the LSU coaches and staff eating Indian
curry at the Bull Bar in Hounslow-Lampton while watching the US Men’s Basketball team
defeat France in the gold medal game. What a finish to an amazing tour with one of the
elite programs in Women’s Basketball and its famous coach, Kim Mulkey.
I’m no stranger to the game having played college basketball myself at the University of
Washington, professionally in Europe (Switzerland, England, and Denmark), coached
collegiately (Whitworth University, University of Idaho, University of Puget Sound), coached
professionally as a player-coach in Denmark, and am heading into my 15th year at Charles
Wright Academy. So you see, “ball is life!”