The column comes to you from across the Atlantic this week.

Perfectly timed to miss out on the best of the English summer weather, I have flown to the States to see to a few basketball and family matters.

I flew into Chicago on Monday and caught a Cubs professional baseball game at Wrigley Field. In sporting terms it is like the Wembley Stadium of football, the Boston Garden in the NBA, or St Andrews in golf.

An old, majestic stadium where baseball can be fun. The Cubs won too, which is a bit of a surprise these days.

I am now in Enid, Oklahoma, home of the Oklahoma Storm and the United States Basketball League Tournament. I went and watched the Storm train this morning and talked with Randy Duck, Sterling Davis and Albert White.

I also met Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the leading scorer in NBA history and the head coach of the Storm.

As I write I am waiting for the tourney to get under way, with four games starting at 11am and running all day and night. The Storm play the last game of the night. I ran into John Thomas, who you will remember as Chester's star point guard last season.

John is also involved here and continues to play well, according to Randy Duck. I will give a full report on the tourney in next week's column.

This event gives me a chance to see many players in one setting who would be potential candidates to play for the Bears so I will be working hard and keeping an eye open for new talent.

I hope to get Randy, Sterl and Al, but you never know what will happen so I will be recruiting hard this weekend.

I then go to my home in Iowa to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. What an accomplishment and I look forward to seeing my eight older brothers and sisters and their families.

I will do a little more recruiting as I stay in the States until July 8. Then it is back to Brighton and back to work for the Bears.

In my absence, my assistant Steve Swanson and Mike Brown will be leading a South Coast side to Crystal Palace next Friday in the Hosana Summer Pro-Am League.

This event has been running every close season for the past six years but this is the first time it has been organised on a mini-league format. They have two pools of three teams, which means two matches and a chance of getting into the semi-finals.

Andre Alleyne, the former Milton Keynes coach, is heavily involved along with the Hosana sports wear company and he tells me there was a lot of demand for more games, hence the new format.

I know he is very enthusiastic about the calibre of players attracted to the event and rightly so.

Luol Deng is one of the hottest properties in the game right now and I hear he had 24 points in the opening game while our own Errol Seaman hit 17 for Hackney.

I will be taking the South Coast side up to Palace for the final game of the pool and hopefully the play-offs and I look forward to seeing old favourites like Peter Scantlebury and Steve Bucknall, who are also involved.

In the meantime, I will make sure I catch the final of the World Cup. It will be hard to find on television here, which is sad, but I will find it and cheer for a Brazil win. I picked them at the beginning, I wish I would have put some money on them with the bookies. I fancy their chances.

GO BEARS
Nick Nurse is head coach and general manager of the Brighton Bears