Updates
Thu, Jun 28th 2007, 20:34
Late Blog
Congratulations to Josh! I know it wasn’t as high as he would have liked but Portland is a great situation for him. I’ll be rooting for him as he heads West. He’s going to be a good pro. Trust me.
So to give you a little recap of my travels:
My older sister, Catie, had her wedding in North Carolina two weekends ago. It was an awesome time. Everything was beautiful- the rehearsal dinner, the wedding ceremony, and the reception after. It was such a special time because my whole family was together. We don’t get to do that much anymore as a family so we definitely enjoyed the entire weekend. From there I went home to Roanoke, VA to help with my high school’s basketball camp. The official title of the camp was the Cave Spring Basketball Camp featuring J.J. Redick. All the money raised from the camp benefited the boys’ basketball team. We had about 150 kids participate and 30 counselors/coaches. Jordan Davidson from Duke flew in and helped me out. Him, Deron Washington (from VA Tech), and I worked out every morning before the camp started. I spent the three days interacting as much as possible with the kids. Some of my activities included signing autographs, taking pictures, officiating games, and coaching the kids. All in all it was a busy few days but a “great success!”.
From Roanoke I headed back to Orlando for two days of workouts. On Thursday morning I spoke at the AIM International conference down here in Orlando. AIM sells a number of all-natural health care products. I’ve taken many of these products since I was 5 years old. It was my first time speaking to a group not related to basketball but it was a lot of fun. This past weekend I flew up to North Carolina to celebrate my birthday with my friends and family. We went to dinner on Saturday night- there was about 15 of us. I can’t believe I’m 23 haha. I feel a little bit older. On Sunday, Coach Collins worked out me and some of the Duke players in front of the entire Duke basketball camp. Greg is coming back from an injury but looked sharp. Jon looked solid as always and Marty shot it really well. I talked to the kids for about ten minutes after we were done. It’s cool to be able to do things like that. I know when I was a kid I idolized all the Duke players.
From Raleigh-Durham I flew to Vancouver for four days. There’s a core specialist that lives in Vancouver that has helped a lot of pro athletes (Terrell Owens, Matt Leinart, Grant Hill, Shaq) improve their core strength and stability. My back has been feeling great so I went up there to get a “check-up”, so to speak. The workouts lasted about two and a half hours each morning and by the time they were done I was exhausted. The trip was definitely worth it although the trip back to Florida was a little complicated. I went from Vancouver to Dallas (my flight out of Dallas was cancelled last night) then drove three hours to Oklahoma City. After three hours of sleep, I flew from Oklahoma City to Atlanta and finally arrived in Orlando at about 130 this afternoon. Whew! What a weird 24 hours.
Now that I’m back in Florida I’ll continue to prepare for summer league and the USA Basketball mini-camp in July. In the meantime, I’ve been hanging out with my little brother as much as possible. He has a chronic foot injury and had to cut his football career short. The coaches at Marshall gave him the option to keep his scholarship and remain at Marshall as a regular student. However, he opted to move down to Florida with me. He’s going to go to school down here starting in the fall. We are extremely close and I absolutely love having him around.
Ok, so we just picked Reyshawn Terry from UNC with the 44th pick. Nice. It’ll be good to have another ACC guy on our team. I have always had nothing but respect for the Carolina guys. They do things the right way.
It’s kind of weird sitting here and watching the draft. I can remember how anxious I was this time last year. It’s amazing how much life can change in a year. One thing remains the same though- basketball. I’m lucky to be doing what I love.
Ok, I’m tired and am headed to the gym in the morning. Now that I’m off the road I’ll be able to post more regularly. Oh, and I posted a couple pics from the wedding weekend on my myspace page: myspace.com/jjredick47. You’re all money, baby!