Maccabi Tel Aviv forward TJ Cline opened up about how he’s experiencing an unprecedented situation for him in Israel and the fear he felt due to rocket attacks, especially when he first heard the alarms warning people to head for shelter.
“Obviously, this isn’t something we’re used to,” Cline said in an interview with ONE. “Israelis and those who grew up here are more accustomed to these scenarions, so we’re just trying to listen to people who are familiar with this situation and trust their judgement to tell us what to do. We’re quite attentive to the instructions, so we just listen to the people who know what they’re talking about and follow the instructions until we feel more comfortable in this situation and feel that we have more understanding on the subject.”
Here’s what Cline also said on:
Other players in Israel:
“We are together in this and share any information that Israelis and people here consider normal but we don’t know. Even to talk about and try to ask the Israeli players about the situation. Many players have families and children who are in shelters and houses have those rooms that you need to enter and also have the noises and sires so we just want to stay in touch and communicate with our family and make sure they know we’re all together and just want peace and go back to basketball.”
How the situation is viewed outside of Israel:
“We’ve talked about it among ourselves: On social media you can know everything quickly and be up to date, but the bad thing is that you can post what you want and anyone can post false positions and “Fake News” and steal another person’s opinion. I personally think we can’t worry about what these people are tweeting or about maybe that they saw one video that suddenly made them feel a certain way and develop a certain opinion, we need to live this moment and what matters to us is the opinions and knowledge of our families and friends and they know what’s going on. And what we’re going through and what the truth is and what we see is the alarms and missiles, that’s what we’re experiencing here.”
How he felt when he first heard the alarms and bombings:
It was definitely nerve-wrecking. Maccabi did a great job and we really got guidance and instructions. There were scary moments but we went into a protected area and talked in messages to make sure everyone was safe, so we all pretty much deal with it together. It’s ahrd to say you can prepare for something like that because it’s impossible. We pray for peace and that this situation will be resolved and that we can return to doing what we love.