Basketball update from the Dutch League
Kati Harty, a former four-year starter for the UW-Green Bay women’s basketball team who wrapped up her collegiate career in 2009, has continued her basketball with the Probuild Lions, out of Amsterdam.
Harty’s team has won three out of season’s top four “awards,” and hopes to continue the success as they approach the tournament championship. Following a recent Dutch League match between the Lions and The World (Americans), Kati was named MVP for the season.
Here’s a note she sent back to the school’s alumni and communications office recently, at our request, to offer an update to Phoenix fans who had asked about her:
Hello fellow UWGBers, my name is Kati Harty, and I played basketball at UWGB for the past 4 years. I was able to continue playing basketball in Amsterdam for a team called The Probuild Lions. Basketball is a lot different over in Europe, mainly because soccer is the main sports kids play. Europe does not have school teams so most of the kids play for clubs. I’m playing with girls who range from 18-28 with different levels of talent. In our division we play for four prizes; the Supercup, the Final Four, the Dutch Cup, and the tournament championship. So far, Probuild has won 3 of the awards and has won the Dutch Cup for the last 3 years! If we can win the tournament championship, we will be the first team in Dutch history to win all 4 prizes (the Supercup is new this year). We had an All-Star game a few weeks back that matched the Dutch vs. The World (Americans). The Americans won by about 20, and I was named to the top 5 as well as the MVP of the season.
My parents were able to come and visit for 2 weeks, and we were able to visit Rome and Belgium. It was very nice to have familiar faces around, and I know they loved watching some basketball games.
I have had a busy week because we had to move from our apartment into a school. Living arrangements can be hard to explain–In Holland if you own a building and leave it for over a year, anyone can live there, and it is hard to kick them out. Holland has a company that places individuals in the buildings so people can’t simply start living inside them. The place that I lived in for the first 6 months was a building that someone left, so the company placed us into this apartment. Well, when they can find someone to live in it for good and/or want to do something to the place they have the right to kick us out and find us a new place–that new place is a school. We moved all of our stuff in Easter weekend, and 6 girls are living on a level of a school. Classrooms serve as our bedrooms and living rooms, and we have student/teacher bathrooms as well as two kitchens. It is a nice place–and we will figure out how to live here, but our other location was very nice. We will now have to bike 25-30 minutes to our fitness center and walk around to find where to eat and shop for groceries.
We have four games left for competition, and then the tournament will start in the middle of April. We play a series of 3 for the first round and 5 for the second and third round. The season is very long since we generally play about one game a week. I’m ready to come home to see my friends and family, but also hungry to win the tournament as well as be a part of history!
I have yet to graduate, and I’m taking classes through UWGB as well as a few from Platteville…
A typical day for me: wake up around 9 sometimes 10, take a class at our fitness class (bodypump, very fun, and if you haven’t tried it and can, I would recommend it), do some homework during the day, make dinner, go to practice, come home and eat, wait a few hours so I can talk to people back home. Some days we have to teach clinics in the morning, which last from about 8:30-12. Other than that, my days are very relaxed…
