Way Better Than a Real Job

Real work isn't what it's cracked up to be. Come in early, watch the clock all day...maybe have to work hard. The author of these tales and anecdotes thinks that he had a better arrangement in terms of the twenty-eight years he spent coaching internationally. The various tenures in thirteen countries were almost always enjoyable, and certainly never boring. He enjoyed flying around the world at employers' expense, staying in many 5-star hotels, sampling the cuisine of the world, and getting paid to do it. Just for giving practices a couple of hours a day and coaching his teams during games. These stories, spanning stays in Europe, Brazil, Malaysia and the Middle East (as well as the USA), are not technically about basketball, but spin-offs from a great variety of travel and experiences. The tales range from comical through serious, and some are a bit bizarre. Coach Stewart is is the author of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Beirut, which chronicles a portion of a season with his Saudi Arabian National Team. This memoir contains stories from: Mecca...Stranded in the desert minutes before tip-off; the former Czechoslovakia...My best player kidnapped (?) in the middle of the night; New York...An account of my fisticuffs with Muhammed Ali; The Arabian Gulf...A trial that will make you angry; Taiwan...Life on Snake Alley; Hong Kong...Conspiring to eat a durian in secret; Albania...Hectic arrival, bizarre departure; Belgrade...My player laughed at by both teammates and strangers alike; France...Tongue-twisting press conferences; Abu Dhabi...Awarded a Saddam Hussein wristwatch; Baghdad...Meeting Saddam's infamous son Uday. Not to mention: Rio de Janeiro...Drums and candles and Macumba prophecies; Cairo...Inside the Great Pyramid; Bolivia...A crack in the plane's window and Soroche; Italy...A good player, humiliated; Argentina...Walking the Andes, visiting near the South Pole; Kuwait...The fate of a housebreaking Iraqi soldier; Louisville..."The Dating Game" experiences; Salzburg...Ordering too many Nockerls; Uruguay...Cold, hungry and in jail; Jordan...Unable to sink in the Dead Sea and Petra; Shanghai...the Macarena at halftime; Malaysia...Cobras inside the house; Seoul...Getting married at the Korean Folk Village; India...The debacle when Iraq played Yemen. Plus: Japan...Where the Mongols were defeated by a typhoon; Tunisia...Where we were awarded the majestic Nabeul Cup; Vienna...A scary museum and a terrifying chase to the airport; Bulgaria...Having a drunk player barred from our flight home; Greece...Nearly sinking a yacht; England...Visiting a town owned by a family and shared with donkeys. AND MANY MORE