THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 9, 1995 TAG: 9508090565
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
For years, Mark Davis waited for the NBA to call. The former Old Dominion star toiled in towns like LaCrosse, Wis., where he put up big numbers for small pay in the Continental Basketball Association.
Then, three years ago, he said ciao to minor league basketball and took a job playing in Italy. Now, it would take enough cash to fill a gondola to lure him back.
``I've had a couple of teams from the NBA offer me contracts, but they want to offer the minimum,'' said Davis, one of about a dozen local players playing overseas. ``Your minimum contract is not going to pay for my type of lifestyle, the lifestyle I've become accustomed to.''
And what kind of lifestyle is that? A salary - $300,000 - that is twice the NBA minimum, with much of the money tax-free. Free use of a car. A rent-free apartment. A schedule - two games per week, max - that allows plenty of time for idling in sidewalk trattorias.
Give up all that to sit on a bench in Sacramento or Cleveland? Davis doesn't think so.
``We live the same lifestyle as those guys do in the NBA, except we're over in Europe,'' Davis said.
A few dozen players in a handful of select countries enjoy that lifestyle, to be sure. But hundreds of other players in other countries merely make a living, earning four- and five-figure salaries in out-of-the-way locales like Iceland and Indonesia.
Still, it beats working. And there is no shortage of jobs. Because while America may import more automobiles than it exports, in basketball we run a huge trade surplus. Sure, every now and then the odd foreign player breaches our shores and makes the NBA. But each year we send hundreds of our not-quite-best-and-brightest players overseas to populate foreign leagues.
``There are hundreds of jobs,'' said Fred Bryan, publisher of the Pro Exposure Report, a daily fax newsletter that tracks the foreign leagues for NBA teams. ``If a player plays Division I basketball, there are a lot of places that would be a step down. Take Luxembourg. I'm 42 and fat, and I could probably still play in Luxembourg.
``But I get approached daily by guys who just want to chase that dream. Often it's a culture shock. But if a guy has a year or two after school before he wants to get serious about life, it's a great experience.''
It's an experience, certainly, as several local players making a living overseas can attest. Players are gone eight to 10 months a year and often must overcome a language barrier. Some make an effort - Davis now speaks passable Italian - while others don't adapt.
``There's a lot of leagues and different things out there,'' said Tom Weirich, a Virginia Beach agent who has represented clients who play overseas. ``It's a matter of how hungry you are to go to another land.''
James Boykins' appetite took him Australia for a year, then to Oskarshamn, Sweden, three hours from Stockholm. While Australia was all shrimp-on-the-barbie friendliness and fast-paced basketball, Sweden was an elbow in the mouth.
``Lots of elbows,'' said Boykins, a native of Zuni who played at Christopher Newport. ``Of course, they don't call them.
``I didn't enjoy it that much. The language just kept throwing me off. I was bored. And it was cold over there. It's time to move on. My agent is trying to get me advertised in other countries.''
In Greece, Suffolk's Lamont Strothers, who has had two stints in the NBA, found the weather agreeable but the financial climate not so nice. On his club, the policy was simple: no win, no drachma.
``In Greece, you lose one or two games, you might not get paid,'' he said. ``I left.''
Strothers, who has also played in France and Puerto Rico, has found a new home in Israel, a locale that presents its own challenges.
``It's a nice country,'' Strothers says. ``The only thing you really have to worry about is the PLO blowing up stuff.''
Worries elsewhere are more mundane. Traffic. Poor officiating. No basketball on the telly. The backaches that come with having to carry a team.
Greg Ford, who played at Indian River High and Hampton University, had a chauffeur last year in Killarney, where he averaged 36 points per game in the Irish Division I league.
``I know if I go back I'm going to have to drive,'' he said with some trepidation. ``They were driving on the wrong side of the road.''
Still, Ford has adapted.
With almost no basketball on television, he became a soccer fan.
``Manchester United,'' he said. ``That's my team.''
Kempsville High graduate Clayton Ritter, who played at James Madison, spent last year in Aalst, Belgium, about 20 miles outside Brussels.
``Driving was the biggest adjustment,'' he said. ``They have sort of an unenforced speed limit. The traffic in Brussels was worse than anything I'd ever seen, worse than LA. It's like traffic anarchy.''
The anarchy occasionally spreads to the basketball court, where creative officiating is not uncommon.
``I flew my parents over there,'' Ritter said. ``We were playing against the team of one of my old college teammates, Jeff Chambers. With .8 seconds left in the game, there were six points scored. We ended up losing, and the crowd rushed the floor. There was basically a riot.''
Ritter doesn't plan to return to Belgium.
``I'd like to move up in competition level and pay level, and that's mainly southern Europe,'' he said.
Ritter does have one treasured souvenir from Belgium, though.
``My bank account,'' he said, laughing.
Salaries in Belgium range from $30,000 to about $200,000, Ritter said. That puts Belgium in the elite group of 12 or so countries that pay the most, and attract the best talent. At the top of the list are Italy, Spain, Greece, France and, recently, Turkey. Players in Israel can also make six figures.
Former ODU player Clarence Handley has spent the last five years in Argentina, where the average salary is $8,000 per month, he said. Handley was the league's MVP two years ago, so he makes a little more than average, he said.
``I've been there so long I speak Spanish now,'' Handley said. ``And I'm pretty much in the warm weather year-round.''
Then there are countries like England, Ireland and Sweden, where the pay, and the level of play, drop dramatically.
``You can make close to 25 (thousand),'' said Ford, the Irish league star. ``It's more of a steppingstone.''
That's on the high end of the scale. But even in the lower-paying countries, most jobs come with a car, an apartment, and three square meals a day.
``I didn't have to come out of my pocket for anything,'' Ford said.
The flip side is that Americans are expected to earn their money. Most rarely come off the floor, although it's typical to play only one or two games per week.
``You come over there slouching and you get back on the plane,'' Strothers said. ``You've got to go over there and change the game for your team.''
Most players do. Davis is a star in Italy, where the rosters are dotted with former NBA players like Dallas Comegys, Orlando Woolridge, Cliff Levingston, Haywoode Workman and Darren Daye. Ritter averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds in Belgium, where former First Colonial and Norfolk State standout Barry Mitchell is also a star. Chesapeake's Curley Young and ODU's Ricardo Leonard joined Ford as top guns in Ireland, and former Great Bridge and Virginia State player Torraine Sears pumped in 27 per night in England.
And Milton Bell, a former Georgetown player who sat out a year at Norfolk State but never played there, is the Michael Jordan of Iceland, averaging 29 points and 22 rebounds. Posters of Bell hang in the homes of young Icelander hoop fans, and he's done TV commercials for Adidas.
``It snowed a lot,'' Bell said. ``But basketball is basketball, wherever you play.''
And as long as they pay. Which is why Davis and Strothers, who have the skills to play in the NBA in the right situation, don't sweat the anonymity of playing overseas.
``It's a business,'' Strothers said. ``I would have been in some NBA camps this year, but with the lockout, I can't trust that.
``The whole object is making money. That's what I'm doing - making money.''
Davis, with his apartment 15 minutes from the Roman Coliseum, and his schedule that allows time for frequent visits to Florence, Milan and Venice, hardly waxes nostalgic for the one NBA season he spent in lovely Milwaukee.
Davis, 32, says he plans to play three or four more years. Handley, 31, hopes to do the same.
Ford, 25, is hoping to trade his Irish League livery for a CBA uniform in a year or two. Ritter, 24, hopes to make enough money to go to law school debt-free.
``It's nice living overseas, but once the novelty wears off, it's not home,'' said Ritter, who nevertheless is in no hurry to hang up his sneakers. ``But it beats going to law school.'' ILLUSTRATION: JANET SHAUGHNESSY/Staff
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
Anthony Carver, a double-digit scorer for ODU, plays in
Switzerland.
Ex-Monarch Mark Davis says he's living an NBA lifestyle, but in
Europe.
by CNB