Nicola Happel, 16, has been training at the IMG Basketball Academy for the past five weeks.

Sixteen year olds generally spend their summers making trips to the beach, checking out the latest movie, or doing anything to enjoy the freedom from the classroom.  However, Nicola Happel is not your average sixteen year old.  Happel is a sixteen year old from a small community near Frankfurt, Germany, and she has been spending the last five weeks training here at the IMG Basketball Academy.

This is the first trip to the United States for this brave teenager, spending more than half of her summer in a foreign country, but so far so good for Nicola.

“I have had a good time here,” she says, “everybody has been very open and friendly and it is always sunny.”

Happel has been working out at the IMG Basketball Academy for the past five weeks, and she can tell that her game has improved since she started training here.

“Coming here has allowed me to become a better player.  Since I have been here for five weeks, I have gotten to experience the different drills we do each week.  It has really given me a chance to see the areas I need to improve and better the skills that I already have.”

When she is home, Nicola plays for a girl’s club team, TSV Grünberg, and says that girl’s basketball is quite popular in her community because of the success her team has had. But since she has been working out here, Women’s Basketball Coordinator, Shell Dailey, quickly noticed the hard work she puts in on the floor and the natural talent that Happel already has.

“As soon as I walked in the gym, I spotted her,” says Dailey. “She played defense with all the fire and passion and her stance was perfect – a true coach’s dream.  I didn’t know kids were committed to playing defense like that. Of course I watched her shut a lot of boy’s down and I did get a tickle inside, and then I’d seen her cut hard to get open and shoot. Nicola plays attention to details and will be a very good player. She has promise and I know she will continue to work on her game. She is fun to watch. She is a player I would love to coach.”

Nicola Happel and Coach Mark Morris.

However, playing basketball is not the only thing she has been working on while in the United States.  After the morning basketball workout, Happel heads to the classroom in the afternoon to work on her English skills.

“I have learned a lot by taking the classes,” says Happel.  “They have shown me how to communicate better with other people.  We play games that help us, and it has given me the chance to meet other kids from all over the world.”

Happel is the type of person that strives to be the best, whether it is on the court or in the classroom, and she has spent her summer here at IMG Academies, improving both.