Summer travel blog: Georgia State arrives back home

This summer, Mid-Major Madness is teaming up with schools across the country as they travel overseas to compete against elite competition and soak up the culture. Student-athletes will blog their experiences for us via written posts, photos, video, and just about anything else they want.

Here’s Jordan Tyson’s final installment, now that Georgia State’s trip has ended...

The trip has concluded, and we’re finally back in Atlanta for a short break before the semester begins. Time sure does fly! This will be my third year at Georgia State and the second time we’ve gone out of the country. This most recent trip to Spain was definitely eventful and most of it has been chronicled in my other blog posts. But more than the games, the food, tours, the boat rides out in the Mediterranean (which was definitely awesome!!), the most memorable moments I’ll have from this trip were the ones I had with my teammates.

As I reflected on in my second post, we lost our first game, but not without taking anything from it. Relationships are built and strengthened through adversity. Even though we failed in our mission of winning the first game, we still learned a lot about each other through the adversity we went through together while on the court. An example of this is when one of my teammates was really struggling the first game with his shooting and just in his performance overall. I built a whole new respect for him when he was able to push through that tough time and bounce back with a great performance the next game in a much more hostile environment. The next game was intense for everybody because of the environment we were in. That might have been one of the hottest gyms I’ve EVER played in. But the fact that all of us were able to push through that time together and come out with the victory left a lasting impression on me, and I feel like it spoke to our team’s resiliency.

Georgia State athletics

Another memory I’ll always have with this group of guys is the day we went to do missionary work for the more underprivileged children in Barcelona. It was very eye-opening for me to see the way all of my teammates were interacting with the children and how diligent and caring they were when washing their feet and giving them shoes. It was beautiful to watch and allowed me to see a different side from them. How can you not want to go to war with a guy who’s able to humble himself to willingly wash a child’s feet?!

Overall this trip was amazing and definitely one for the memory books. I’m very thankful to be in a position to go on a trip like that and also be able to share my experiences with you guys while there. Thank you to all who’ve read these blogs! Thank you to anyone who showed an interest if not in what I have to say, than at least what’s going on with the best basketball team in the country (*wink wink). Trying to speak that one into existence. Shout out to Mid-Major Madness once again for the opportunity to post these blogs on their website. Also be on the lookout for Georgia State men’s basketball this year coming up!