Da’Nasia Hood – Texas kid ballin’ in Finland with PeKa

Da’Nasia Hood, 23 year old first year rookie in the pro-game after first spells in Puerto Rico and Israel – she now finds herself playing in the Finnish powerhouse team Peli-Karhut (or PeKa) in Kotka.

On a sunny winter day in Finland, I headed to Kotka to cover the training session of PeKa and to talk to Da’Nasia about how she came to play for PeKa, why she chose basketball, Finnish winter weather (not quite the Texas winter she is used to), and her aspirations as a player.

Hood has started her career in Finland on fire, she has reached double figures on scoring in each of the nine game, last seven games she has also reached double digits in rebounds – and to top it all in the 7th of January game vs HBA she recorded a Triple-Double : 24 points, 18 rebounds and 10 steals !!

My standard first question to pretty much everyone I talk to is ‘Why basketball??’ – so what was it that got her hooked on the game she now plays professionally?

In Hood’s case she was introduced to the sport at an early age, with he aunt playing basketball – and her family being big time into football (that’a American Football to all of us outside of America 😉 ) and basketball, so sport was always part of her growing up.

Basketball came more serious in middle school as Da’Nasia says she had some great coaches who improved her as a player and with the love for the game, it seemed like the obvious thing that basketball would be something more than just the scrimmage games between friends.

With Hood being a San Antonio native, I just had to ask about the wintry weather. As the temperatures have been dipping down to -30 (celsius) over the last months – it might not be what a ‘Texas kid’ is used to. She takes a moment and smiles and goes to explain that the temperatures she is used are not quite on the scale she’s experienced back home – but also she does say that seeing snow outside is lovely and she feel blessed to have had the chance to experience this kind of weather.

Her team mates have also been very kind and taught here few useful Finnish phrases like ‘Moi’ and ‘Kiitos’ – when asked whether any swearwords have been taught .. apparently her teammates have not gotten that far.

Asked what type of player she is – the one point that comes out, which does not always show in the stats. Is that she wants to be (and is) a player who is adjustable and also how wants to make her teammates better players as well. Also as the stats say – she is also able to take the lead/be a leader in the team.

Then the question players sometimes skirt around, is ‘where do you see yourself professionally in 3-4 years time’ – for Hood, the answer is same as for many others. To see where life takes her, which really is all a professional athlete can do – there rarely are guarantees in professional sports. WNBA is naturally a goal she would like to achieve, and for that she says she keeps working and grinding and to be a better player.

We made the interview on Friday evening, 24 hours before PeKa had a re-match of the Finnish Cup Final vs ToPo – as I type this, the tip-off is still five hours away. But Da’Nasia reflects on the game a week ago and says that PeKa stayed in the game well last week until the third quarter – but the results wasn’t the W they wanted. The situations last week of course weren’t ideal, with the team losing Lotta Vehka-Aho to an injury in the semi-final – so Saturday evenings game at PeKa’s home gym is a chance to see how the teams match-up this time.

Huge thanks to Da’Nasia for taking time to talk to me after the practice – it is nice to get to talk to players and get to know them a little bit more than ‘ oh, she’s great shooter ..’ or ‘ geez, she can dribble the ball… ‘.

And hopefully with these interviews, bringing the players a little closer to the fans.