VILLEURBANNE, France — David Lighty is a night owl. The former Ohio State star now playing for French powerhouse club ASVEL stays up well past midnight, usually closer to 3 a.m. This is an old habit, but Lighty enjoys a newer benefit that came with it once he began his professional career in Europe: Being six hours ahead of the Eastern time zone allows Lighty more free time to regularly catch up with his 5-year-old son via FaceTime and phone calls.
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Even better, though, is the agreement in Lighty’s contract that ASVEL will help pay for six-to-eight trips a year for his family to visit him in Lyon-Villeurbanne.
“For your family to experience this with you is great,” Lighty says.
Agreements like the one in Lighty’s contract are common for Americans playing professional basketball in Europe. Seasons usually begin in September and run into May, when most domestic leagues conclude with playoffs. The EuroLeague, EuroCup, Champions League and other continental competitions for the top clubs in Europe follow similar schedules, running parallel to league play. “If you’re not happy,” Barcelona guard Malcolm Delaney says, “it can be a long 10 months.”
Because of the lengthy commitment, clubs increasingly try to find ways to make their prized American signings feel more comfortable. If flying family over for visits or helping place a player’s child in a local school assists that effort, then the cost is worth it.
“We’re trying to create a win-win situation,” says Gaëtan Müller, ASVEL president Tony Parker’s right-hand man and the managing director of the club. “Of course they are professionals and they get paid for this, but family is so important. We have to respect that and try to help them to have time off work to see family. That’s how we want to run our business.”
Player contract negotiations often center around family-related details, says Andy Bountogianis, an agent with Klutch Sports who represents Lighty and numerous other clients in Europe. Topics like medical insurance for the player’s family or round-trip tickets for parents, wives, girlfriends and children to visit top the list. The richer clubs also offer other perks, like cars or housing. Most teams eat together, with meals provided by the team. (Ettore Messina, the legendary Italian coach who served as Gregg Popovich’s right-hand man, likened playing professionally in Europe to American college basketball in some ways because of the team meals and travel.)
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Help with schooling is especially important when players want to move their families with them. Options differ based on the size of the city or town where the club is — larger metropolitan areas like Lyon-Villeurbanne in France often have international schools that cater to students from all over the world.
Lighty’s son is attending kindergarten classes during an extended stay in the new year, learning in both English and French. “He speaks a little French,” Lighty says, laughing. “He gets so excited about coming over.” Kyle Kuric, the former Louisville star who now plays at Barcelona, enrolled his two young sons in the famous Catalonian club’s school, where they mingle with the kids of soccer superstars Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. “They speak better Spanish than I do,” Kuric says. Bountogianis mentioned that one European club even helped arrange school transportation 40 minutes from the city for a child of Ramel Curry, a Bountogianis client in his 15th season overseas.
“Some kids now are going to the local country’s schools,” Bountogianis says. “They’ll have English taught there, too, but they’ll learn the local country’s language. That’s good for the kid as a young child to learn a different language.”
Lighty and Cliff Alexander, another American playing in France who is parenting from afar, both mentioned the challenges of celebrating holidays overseas, especially if their kids are back home in the States. Thanksgiving is the most difficult, built so heavily around spending time with family. It’s just another Thursday over here. Because American schools (and companies) slow down or take breaks around the winter holidays, players use their club-assisted family tickets the most around that time.
Agents and teams also try to help. Bountogianis and his wife stayed in Athens, Greece, for Thanksgiving a few years ago, asking the hotel to prepare a holiday meal for any of his American clients in the area who wanted to join them. At Olimpia Milano, Messina organized a Thanksgiving-themed dinner for the team meal.
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“A game is important, but family is more,” Messina says. “You need to be around an organization that lets you fly home, for example. There are a lot of small things you can do to let (players) understand that you respect their culture and you want them to experience your own culture here, too. Respect each other. That’s something that really matters to our players and it should matter to us coaches and us as an organization.”
For Alexander, the hardest part of playing in France and Germany over the past two years has been watching his daughter grow up in the U.S. through a cell-phone screen. He watched her first steps on FaceTime, and his family propped up his phone in the room where his daughter blew out the candles on her first birthday cake. When The Athletic spoke with Alexander in November, he already had plans to watch his daughter’s second birthday through his phone.
But, Alexander says, technology has helped make the life of an American professional in Europe much easier. (This is an improvement from the years before smartphones and Skype — players kept in touch with family via the phone and missed out on the video aspect of contact.) Alexander’s daughter is old enough to know who he is and calls him “Dada.” She talks to him through FaceTime and visited him in November with help from the club.
“It just motivates me more over here,” says Alexander, who plays for Le Mans in France. “It makes me want to go all in on this. As long as she knows and I know that I’m over here trying to provide for her, it’s OK.”
The longest Lighty has gone without seeing his son is 2 1/2 months. They typically visit every two months or so, with trips lasting around a month. Like Alexander, Lighty says playing professional basketball is “all for them.”
“It’s what you live with,” Lighty says. “The question you ask yourself is, what can you put up with?”
And how can your club help?
(Top Photo of David Lighty by Romain Lafabregue / AFP via Getty Images)
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