I put on the Jersey that said “Nepal” on the front and walked out onto the court. I saw the people in the stands, looked around the stadium and cried.

This was me and my teammates after our 1st game in the South Asian Games in Bangalore, India:

I was overwhelmed with pride, joy, excitement, and honor to be given the opportunity to represent my country while playing the game I love. All my hardwork, dedication, blood, sweat and tears led up to this point. Never has there been a Nepalese player who was born in Nepal, grew up in America and then came back to play for Nepal as a National Player. I was the first to have ever done it. But more important than being the first was the fact that I “was” now actually a National Player. I never dreamed of becoming a National player. For me, as some of you may know, my dream was to play in the NBA or professional basketball one day. I didn’t even know if it was possible for me to play on my Nepalese National Team since I grew up in America. I mean who was I to think I could play for my country out millions of other players they could choose from.

So how did I actually get on the team?

Well…it started back in 2011 when I was playing in our annual Nepalese Basketball tournament called “ANA”, which stands for Association of Nepalis in America. The ANA that year was being held in upstate New York. I guess I performed real well and caught the eye of our Nepal National Sports’ Vice President, Tendi Sherpa, who wondered if I’d like to play for a club team in Nepal. But nothing really came of that. So a year went by, I reached out to Tendi Dai (Dai means big brother in Nepali) and asked via email if it were possible for me to play on our National Team. He unfortunately said that playing on a club team was a definite but playing on the National Team was not really possible. So I told him there was no way I could play on the club team since I needed money to send back to my family and support myself. The answer was still that it wasn’t possible.

So another few years went by but by this time I had already played professionally in Mongolia. After coming back home to Jersey for the offseason, it just so happened that Tendi Dai was here in New York for a bit. So I quickly thought to myself, “well now that I’ve played 2 years Semi Pro and am a professional Basketball player” I have a good enough resume to possibly play for my National Team. So I said man f*&* it let me give it a shot and talk to him in person. So I got the help of my friend Paribesh’ Dad, Sundar Dai, who knew Tendi Dai when they were younger to help me convince Tendi and translate what I had to say in Nepali. We talked and long story short he told me I could try out and that there was a slim chance of me making the team. The fact of the matter was that there were 4 other coaches/judges who had a say in who was selected. But he said at the end of the day his vote is the most important and if I performed well he would do his best to get me on the team. And although that wasn’t a guarantee that’s all I needed to hear. Off I went to Nepal for the first time in 26 years. It quickly hit me as I was on the plane that not only was I about to try out for the National team but I was also returning back to my birthplace and a place I had dreamed of visiting ever since I was a kid.

Stay tuned for the next blog post where I’ll share my actual tryout experience and how it all went down…