A Product of Growing Up in the Basketball Lifestyle

Ever since Abby was about 3-4 years old, I started to think about how this basketball lifestyle was going to affect our children. It is challenging for us as adults, and we have the capabilities of processing emotions and feelings at a deeper level, as well as doing simple things like keeping up with people on Skype, e-mail and Facebook. It got me thinking about the idea of third culture kids.  But the more I looked into the topic, I realized that basketball kids really don’t fit into any of the categories of most third culture kids.  I knew that in order to really learn how I could be the best parent to our kids in this lifestyle, I needed to hear from someone who had lived through it.  But professional overseas basketball has not always been such a big market for Americans, so it would be tough to find an adult who grew up in this culture.

But this year when Joe was telling me about his teammates, he explained that his one teammate was an American with an Italian passport.  It is normal to find American teammates with other passports due to marrying a spouse from another country or having ancestral roots that allow them to get a passport.  He explained though that his teammate Ryan Bucci did indeed have Italian roots, but his dad also played basketball in Italy for a number of years.  This perked my interest quickly when Joe told me that Ryan was very comfortable here and spoke fluent Italian because he lived here until he was 11 years old.  I decided I would give us a few months to get to know each other until I picked his brain though (just kidding).  The other week, I e-mailed Ryan a few questions to see what his thoughts were about growing up as the child of a professional basketball player to see what I could learn from it for our own family.  Thanks so much to Ryan for taking the time to answer my questions:

Ryan Bucci- 2010/2011 Captain of Sigma Barcellona

1. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. How many places did you live? How often did you move?

My childhood was great. I only have good memories, from all three cities that I lived in here in Italy. I stayed in Siena for the first 4 years, then Bologna for 5 years, Montecatini for 1 year, and finally 1 more year back in Siena. So it was three cities with the return to Siena the last year. When we went back to the U.S. for the summertime we always stayed in Newburgh, NY. Even though we were in Italy for most of the year, the U.S. always felt like home.

2. Did this lifestyle seem normal to you at first? At what age did you start to understand that not everyone moved or lived in another culture as you did?

The lifestyle always did seem normal to me. I think that it was a great experience, and I’m glad I got an opportunity to experience a different culture at such a young age. I think that being as young as I was, I beleived it to be normal to do what we did. I didn’t know any better. As I got older it started to become a little more difficult, around the age of 10. When I was 11 years old, my father retired and personally for me it was the perfect age to settle home and start a “normal” life. I just started the sixth grade and it was good to be a whole year at home before starting junior high school.

3. Did you parents do anything to help you adjust to the moving and cross-cultural living? If not, what do you think would have helped? Knowing what you know now, how will you help your children with this lifestyle?

My parents were terrific with helping us adjust to both cultures. They raised us to speak both languages, which helped us outside the house when we were in Italy. We went to school in both countries during the times we lived in each one. During the Italian school year, my mother would home school us with the English after we returned from the Italian school day. It was a lot of work, especially for my mother with our schooling, but it defenitely helped us. They always encouraged us to make friends in Italy, and being kids, you kind of automatically adjust because you have to. We also kept in touch with our friends back in the U.S. with letters. I will try to follow what my parents did for me and my siblings with my own daughter. I really beleive they did a great job, because I never thought anything of it while growing up.

4. Were you ever resentful of the professional basketball lifestyle? If so, did you share those concerns with your parents?

I was never resentful of the professional basketball lifestyle. It was all I knew, and it was great for many reasons. Both my parents were home all the time, and we did many things together. We had the summers off to visit family and friends back in the U.S. We had good friends in both countries that we always kept in touch with. The only thing that I can think of that bothered me was maybe my father’s fame in Italy. Everywhere we went people always would say his name and approach him to talk or get autographs. When I was with my father, I wanted that to be our personal time when we left the house. Maybe I was just jealous for his attention at that age. Back in the U.S. we were just another ordinary family, and I liked it.

5. At what age did your father stop playing basketball? What was the hardest adjustment back to a “normal” U.S. lifestyle?

My father retired at age 37, and I was 11 years old. It really wasnt that hard to adjust back to the U.S. lifestyle. It always felt like it was our true home. All our family and our permanent house was in New York. I missed Italy for a lot of different things, but I was at an age were I feel like I needed some stability. The timing was perfect for me to remain home in the U.S.

6. Did your siblings handle the lifestyle any differently than you? Do you think personality plays into how a child handles being a third culture kid?

My brother and sister both enjoyed the experience as well. My sister may not remember much though because she was onlly 3 years old when we stayed in the U.S. for good. My brother on the other hand, loved it as much as I did. We were best friends growing up because no matter where we moved, we were the ones that never changed. Having each other was really important and made the whole situation easier for one another. He is only 2 years younger than I am, so he was 9 when my father retired. To this day we talk about all our unique experiences of living in 2 countries for a decade. I don’t know for sure if personalities come into play with the lifestyle. My brother and I are pretty different and we both ended up enjoying the experience tremendously.

This was such an encouragement for me to hear about Ryan’s experiences.  Tomorrow I will look at some of the ways I hope we can employ what I learned from Ryan to make this lifestyle as enjoyable and beneficial as possible for our own children.