With Dave Fromm, Author of Expatriate Games

BDW: When exactly did you realize that you wouldn’t be a professional basketball player? Describe that exact moment and how it felt.

DF: I can’t remember when I first let go of the “pro ballplayer” dream, but it was pretty early in my life — maybe by junior high.  My dad had played college basketball at a Division III school in Baltimore, and that became my measuring stick – some sort of collegiate or postgraduate hoop success.  Somewhat hastily, I selected a biggish Division I college and tried out for the team as a walk-on, and pretty quickly confirmed that I just didn’t have the tools to play at that level without a near-religious dedication of time and effort.  That was a painful, but unsurprising, realization, and I think my overseas adventures were an attempt to atone for the ease with which I let my collegiate hopes evaporate.

DF: In Prague, I was just so happy to find an organized team and get to play in a coherent league setting that I didn’t focus much on the differences between the top Czech leagues and our more middling club league.  I do remember a point in the middle of Vinohrady’s season where someone suggested I could play at the Superliga level, and I thought briefly about exploring it.  Ultimately, though, I felt that I was getting the most out of the game where I was, with the guys on my team, and I didn’t think I’d feel any more accomplished anywhere else.  It was probably a good decision, too, as the Superliga players were tough.

BDW: Is there anything you would have done differently during your basketball development years (middle school, high school) with the knowledge and experience you have now? Was there anything you could have done but didn’t do that could have put you into a lasting professional basketball career in Europe?

DF: I think when I was young, I played with a big chip on my shoulder, always trying to prove something to myself and my opponents.  I was rarely successful at that.  I think the great benefit of getting older is figuring out some semblance of who you are and what you want out of life.  And that, of course, translates to the basketball court.  If I could bring the knowledge and experience I have now to my younger self, I think I would have tried to be a better leader, I would have tried to play against more and better opponents, I would have had more faith and confidence in my game.  I might have weighed my post-high school playing options differently.  I would certainly have gotten to the foul line more often.

DF: As for a lasting basketball career in Europe, remember that in the mid-1990s the Internet wasn’t so user-friendly.  It was much harder to find out about the basketball culture of Europe from the United States.  Still, I think if I had been more prepared, and had done more homework on the leagues, the talent levels, and the styles of play, I might have approached the possibilities differently.  As a guard and a mediocre player, I was only going to be successful as an integrated part of a team, so if I could do it again, I would have worked harder to familiarize myself with the teams, the leagues, the languages, etc.  For example, I had the opportunity to go abroad during my junior year of college.  I went to England and played for my college team, but might have selected another destination and tried to hook on with a local club.

BDW: Why did you choose Czech Republic and Prague in particular? You talked about it in your book to some extent, but have you seriously considered any other European country?

DF: I had been to Prague once before, for a three-day trip, and felt like I could find opportunity there.  The city was stunning and inexpensive, there were a number of young foreigners there, it was exotic but also familiarly “Western”.  I felt like I could go there, without knowing much about it, and I would be able to survive until either I found a team or gave up.  By contrast, while I was familiar with some of the great Eastern European players like Marciulionis, Drazen Petrovic, Arvidas Sabonis, Dino Radja, and others, I did not know anything about, for example, Riga or Dubrovnik.  I didn’t even know how to get to those places.

DF: After spending some time in Prague, I did think about where else I might be able to play, how much fun it might be to try to play in Belgrade or Tallinn.  But I had a non-basketball life waiting for me at home and had to return to it.  Which was probably lucky for me, since Balkan basketball might have been even more of a challenge than Division I had been.

BDW: Do you think you aimed too low when you found yourself in Prague? Do you have regrets of not trying to make it with a Superliga team?

DF: Not at all. I know what you mean, but back then my aim was so vague that it wasn’t possible to aim too low. I wanted to join a European basketball team, preferably a “professional” one. There were so many hurdles in the way of achieving even that basic goal that I feel like I overachieved by hooking up with Vinohrady, and even that wouldn’t have been possible if they hadn’t been a great group of guys.  So I don’t have any individual regrets. I wasn’t the best player in my Czech league, and I probably wasn’t even the “best” player on my Vinohrady team.  We each did different things well.  Vykli, for example, was a great three-point shooter. Slava was a better team general. Sure, I would have liked to play at the highest level I could (and I would have loved to see if I could have played at the Superliga level), but I was very lucky, and very happy, with the way things worked out.  I learned a tremendous amount and became a better player (and a better person) as a result of playing with Vinohrady. My only regret is that I was slow to integrate into the team, and as a result we struggled early in the season.  Later on, when we played well, we were as good as anyone in our league. Maybe even better. And I think that I could have done a better job identifying how I fit in to what the team was doing.

BDW: What did this experience of playing semi-professional basketball in Europe mean to you after it was over? What does it mean to you now?

DF: At the time, the experience was an enormous confidence booster.  Before Prague, I had felt a little like an athletic underachiever because, although I liked to think of myself as a basketball player, I’d never given it my all.  So moving to a foreign country, with nothing but basketball, reversed that lingering self-doubt.  And even though we were not that successful, I felt thrilled to be a part of the team.  I learned about the surprising world of European basketball, a world I knew existed but had no real awareness of.  I also got a firsthand education in international relations, something I have since pursued as part of my law career.  So even immediately after it was over, I knew the experience had been a life-altering one.

DF: And as for what it means to me now, well, it stands out as perhaps the most important rite of passage I experienced.  It was the adventure of my lifetime, something I will tell my kids and grandkids about.  Not a week goes by that I don’t think of night buses through Prague, the smell of coal and the Czech endearments floating through the Vinohrady locker room.