Megan Gustafson wedding officiated by Lisa Bluder

[wwhawk]

July 18th Megan Gustafson married fellow professional hoopster David DiLeo in the garden at Bella Sala in Tiffin, IA. Officiating the nuptials was none other than Lisa Bluder!

Gustafson's dog Pancake was a "special participant" of the ceremony. (TMI?)

(The following is a copy and paste from Wikipedia): Gustafson in a starter for the WNBA franchise Portland Fire and is having the best pro season of her career.
As a senior at Iowa, she scored 1000 points that year and won the Honda Sports Award as the nation's top female basketball player. On 15 March 2019, ESPN named her the national player of the year. In 2018 and 2019, she was named the Big Ten Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year. On January 26, 2020, Iowa retired the number 10 in her honor.

 

[guffus]

Congrats to Meagan

Still trying to figure out how somebody born in Wisconsin with a Scandanavian last name, who then played her college ball at Iowa and got married in Iowa, also ends up playing on the Spanish Olympic team.

But I guess that's life in these modern times.

 

[wwhawk]

"But how did she end up playing for Team Spain?
Like other Americans playing for other countries in the Olympics, Gustafson became a naturalized citizen after Spain asked her if she'd be interested in playing for them.
Gustafson told El Mundo in an interview that the naturalization process started last spring after the Spanish Basketball Federation (Federación Española de Baloncesto) contacted her agent. After filling out the paperwork and visiting the embassy a few times, she said it was worth it.
Although she had visited Spain a couple of times while playing in Europe for the London Lions, she would like to get to know the country better especially as she didn't think she would get the opportunity to go to the Olympics.
She had to make quite the adjustment as all the plays were called in Spanish. With the help of her teammates, and a Spanish teacher, Gustafson learned and was a top contributor for the team."
(All of the above was copied and pasted from something called "weareiowa.com")
Spain beat China in the Paris Olympics. They didn't medal, but the Olympic results show them as one of the top 5 teams. Not sure how that was determined since there are no official places beyond the bronze medal. (Whatever!)

 

[guffus]

"But how did she end up playing for Team Spain?
Like other Americans playing for other countries in the Olympics, Gustafson became a naturalized citizen after Spain asked her if she'd be interested in playing for them.
Gustafson told El Mundo in an interview that the naturalization process started last spring after the Spanish Basketball Federation (Federación Española de Baloncesto) contacted her agent. After filling out the paperwork and visiting the embassy a few times, she said it was worth it.
Although she had visited Spain a couple of times while playing in Europe for the London Lions, she would like to get to know the country better especially as she didn't think she would get the opportunity to go to the Olympics.
She had to make quite the adjustment as all the plays were called in Spanish. With the help of her teammates, and a Spanish teacher, Gustafson learned and was a top contributor for the team."
(All of the above was copied and pasted from something called "weareiowa.com")
Spain beat China in the Paris Olympics. They didn't medal, but the Olympic results show them as one of the top 5 teams. Not sure how that was determined since there are no official places beyond the bronze medal. (Whatever!)

Interesting. Not complaining but I guess national Olympic teams pretty much are free to sign anybody even if they have no previous connection to that country. I guess the key is players need to be willing to play for that country and go through the naturalization process and give up their chance to play for team USA.

In the end, sounds like it was a cool opportunity for Meagan so good for her.

 

[M1911A1Hawkeye]

Nice