Greetings From Sunny Southern California!

HOWDY!

Blake Davis here. I'll be the first to say I'm the proudest member of the fighting Texas Aggie class of '10! (Beat you to it Meredith :-P) I'm a senior Kinesiology major at Texas A&M in College Station, Tx. I'm doing my internship in the sports medicine department at the training center in Chula Vista, which for those of you who don't know, is about 20 minutes away from downtown San Diego, and only 5 minutes away from the border of Mexico! So we see border patrol in and around the complex all the time which is always fun. In the sports medicine clinic, I have a wide variety of tasks I get to do, from assisting the athletic trainers in various forms of treatment to maintenance of the athletes medical records and scheduling athletes for massage therapy.

There is definitely something special about being a part of the USOC family. I've met so many amazing people so far and hopefully there will be many more to come. The athletes and their devotion to their sports just amazes me and it's been a real priviledge helping them in the sports medicine clinic. There's no way I could sum up all of the experiences I've had the priviledge of having here at the OTC in this blog, but I'll try and give you guys some of the highlights.

*Getting to be an EMT and participate on the sidelines of the BMX world competition that the training center held. It was incredible, there were athletes from over 20 countries, and to be there and watch the USA men and women who we work on so frequently in sports med, compete was a really cool thing to see.

*Taking a lot of the staff out to a local dance hall because everyone kept asking me, 'now how exactly does the Texas two-step dance go' and getting to teach everyone how to do it!

*Surfing lessons! People here really love to go surfing, there are many athletes and staff that regularly make trips out to the beaches to hit up some 'good surf'. And yes, these crazy californians really do surf year-round!

*When concert's don't fully sell-out the olympic training center gets the tickets for really cheap! So far, I've been able to see Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley and Def Leppard for about $6.00 a ticket, so thats been really fun, because it almost seems like every other weekend another famous performer is in town.

*Getting to meet and interact with all the athletes and famous coaches I've always dreamed about meeting. I still can't get over it, because watching the beijing olympic games I recognize so many athletes that we work with on a regular basis. We have people from Kayaking, Track and Field, Cycling, Field Hockey, Rugby, Soccer, along with so many others!

I can't believe I've done so much in the short month and a half that I've been here. I'm looking forward to what life has in store for me as I finish up the rest of the semester here at Olympic Training Center in the Intern program. I look forward to writing more in this as the semester continues along!

Thanks and Gig 'Em, (Aggie thing)

Blake Davis