Article from MERCURY - 24/4/08
HUGH Greenwood has been leading a surreal life.
Last week he was playing basketball at New York's Madison Square Garden in front of thousands of spectators and yesterday he was shooting hoops at Warrane Stadium in front of a couple of journalists and a floor cleaner.
The 16-year-old is back home in Hobart to play for the AIS against the Hobart Chargers in the SEABL tomorrow night.
Over the past few weeks Greenwood, the youngest member of the AIS basketball scholarship program, debuted for the AIS, won a bronze medal with the Australian Emus at the unofficial under-19s world championships in Germany and last week was in New York for the Michael Jordan Nike Camp.
The camp is held annually by Chicago Bulls' NBA legend Michael Jordan for the best 16-year-old basketballers in the world, with Greenwood the only Australian invited.
The whole New York experience left Greenwood in awe.
"We were picked up from the airport by stretch limo and stayed at the Grand Hyatt," he said.
"We got to meet Michael Jordan and have our photo taken with him which was so amazing because he is like a god."
The culmination of the four-day camp was to play a match at Madison Square Garden -- arguably the world's most famous arena which seats 20,000 spectators.
"I was so nervous before the game because there was so many people there and they did it like an NBA game and we all had to run on to the court from backstage as we were introduced," he said.
Greenwood also had the chance to impress during game time because the coach struggled to communicate with the other international players which allowed Greenwood to play virtually the entire game, which was streamed over the internet, at the point.
"I learned so much from the whole camp, it is nice to see where you sit against all the others," he said.
"It just shows how far you can go in the sport."
And it wasn't all hard work in New York either.
The camp participants were showered with freebies from the major sponsor with the latest Jordan-branded Nike gear including shoes, tracksuits and bags.
"When I went over there I had 11kg worth of luggage and when I came back I had 30kg," he said.
Source: The Mercury 24th April, 2008
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