Before the Rice University men’s basketball team boards a flight to Belgium for an eight-day international tour, the Owls have already done some heavy lifting in the classroom.
In preparation for its August trip through Belgium and France, the team participated in two cultural workshops designed and led by School of Humanities faculty members Jacqueline Couti, Caroline Fache and Linsey Sainte-Claire. The student-athletes got a crash course in French basics from common phrases to etiquette and were encouraged to step outside their comfort zone before taking their game abroad.
“My biggest takeaways are learning basic phrases and just being able to communicate with people in France as best as I can in French,” senior forward Andrew Akuchie said.
The workshops weren’t only about grammar drills and vocabulary quizzes. Instead, the professors emphasized interaction, authenticity and confidence.
“We wanted to show them that learning a language isn’t about perfection,” said Couti, the Laurence H. Favrot Professor of French and chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures. “It’s about being open, curious and respectful when stepping into another culture.”
Fache said the workshop goal was to help the Owls engage meaningfully with the people they meet overseas.
“Being able to say ‘hello,’ ‘thank you’ or ‘have good game’ or ‘foul’ in the local language makes a difference,” said Fache, associate professor of French. “It shows humility and effort, and those things translate across cultures.”
Junior guard Jordan Williams said he walked away with a deeper appreciation for the trip ahead.
“Paris seems very layered, very cultured, and I’m just excited to experience it,” Williams said.
The sessions included practical tools as well.
“After they gave me the basics, I feel like it told me the essentials to walk around the city and feel comfortable,” Williams said. “Things such as ‘thank you,’ ‘hello,’ ‘I don’t speak French fluently’ — things of that nature. That gave me a different perspective and gave me some go-to words and tools that I can use.”
“They helped a lot by teaching us the language, the overall culture and what to expect over in France,” Akuchie said.
For assistant professor Sainte-Claire, that sense of preparation is exactly what the workshops aimed to deliver.
“A lot of these young men have never been to Europe,” Sainte-Claire said. “Our job was to help them feel empowered, not intimidated. We tried to make it fun but also gave them tools to connect as travelers and as representatives of Rice.”
On Aug 1, the Owls will depart Houston for Brussels, where they’ll spend two days exploring Belgium’s capital city and playing their first exhibition game of the trip against a local club. From there, the team will go to France and travel to Lille for two more days, followed by a final leg in Paris that includes sightseeing and one last game before heading home Aug. 9.
“The opportunity to experience another part of the world is so valuable,” head coach Rob Lanier said. “The basketball is certainly a significant part of this, but the experience is much more than that. We are extremely grateful to be able to have this journey together as a program. I expect it to create some lasting memories and strengthen our connection to one another.”
