 Garth Joseph For one globe-trotting American, Odessa is a great place to play By Gerald HARTY |
Strolling around Odessa with Garth Joseph is an unnerving experience. Everywhere you go, people stop and stare. Cars grind to a halt, shop workers do double-takes, and smokers pause mid-puff, gaping.
Joseph's vital statistics might have something to do with it: At 218 centimeters (7 feet, 2 inches) tall and 150 kilograms, he's a walking man-mountain. He's also the city's best known celebrity athlete, which gives him slim chance of maintaining a low profile. Still, he's a relative newcomer, having signed with Odessa's professional basketball team just two months ago.
Joseph says he's become used to the attention.
"I take it in stride," he laughs. "People stare at me, sure. But I'm used to it. The way I look at it, anybody who asks me for a picture or an autograph is doing me a favor. As long as their approach is nice, it's no problem."
Some fans lack tact, though, he says.
"Fans can say things that are pretty nasty, whether they mean to or not - like a child who blurts out stuff without thinking. Mostly, I just let it go. But sometimes I ask them, 'Would you like it if you had a big head, and I went up to you and screamed, "Oh, my God! Your head is enormous!"'"
The 31 year-old player is philosophical about the winding career path that's brought him to Ukraine.
"I play the cards I'm dealt," he said. "I deal with what I have and I try to make it work for me."
"I'm like Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery," he chuckles. "I've played in Greece, Slovakia - all over. I came straight from playing a season in China to help out Odessa."
So far, he says he hasn't been as big a help as he had hoped.
"I don't feel very comfortable with my performance," he said. "I came here to be a solution, to help them win the championship, but we lost to Kyiv in the semi-finals."
Joseph averaged a point a minute during the past dozen games, but feels the coaches haven't known how or where to play him.
"I've averaged about ten minutes per game. In my first two games, I played 15 to 17 minutes and averaged about 18 points, but they didn't use me enough," he said. "I don't understand that. I'm puzzled."
Refereeing is another factor that Joseph feels has diluted his chance to help Odessa have a championship season.
"The refereeing here is frustrating," he said. "There is a lot of unfair officiating. [The referees] win a lot of games. I've played in China for the last three years, and it's the same there. It drives me crazy."
Joseph gives high marks to his Ukrainian teammates, but thinks they need more exposure to differing styles of play.
"This country has a lot of very talented guys, but I don't think they use their talent enough. The big problem is there aren't enough foreigners playing here. Because of that, the game lacks variety and the players can't develop," he said. "If you only compete against your own people, how can you take on new ideas and styles?"
And watching tapes of NBA games isn't enough, he says. "It's one thing to watch, another to play. People think you get better by playing a lot, whereas you improve by playing better guys. You might lift weights, practice every day and get stronger, yes. But if you don't go up against stronger players, you'll never be a strong basketball player."
Going up against Joseph must be tough for smaller opponents. As the tallest player in the league, he admits his size has benefits as well as drawbacks.
"Being 7'-2" and 150 kilos means I'm less athletic, a little slower than most of the other guys," he said. "And when you're big, the referee tends to let smaller people beat you up a little more."
Joseph was born in 1973 on the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic).
"I was pretty short growing up. My mother is the tall one (6 feet). My father is only about 5'9". But when I was 11, I grew eight inches in one month. Up until then I'd never really cared for basketball."
An American coach took him to Albany, New York, where he played college basketball. It wasn't a heroic start: "My first game was so bad that people actually laughed and booed me off the court." Joseph recalled. "But I hung in there. Within four months, I was averaging 14 points a game. When the coach tried to give me a breather the crowd would boo him for taking me off. So it was a complete turnaround."
Joseph seemed headed for the NBA when he broke an ankle. Recovery was slow and his career hopes nosedived.
"I started playing in the minor leagues, where you travel everywhere by bus and the players are expected to do the driving. You'd spend 15 hours on the road and go straight on to the court. I was earning $250 a week. When you're driving in a snowstorm in the middle of North Dakota, you think, 'I should quit this and get a real job.'"
Before the "real job" materialized, Joseph was scouted and signed by the Toronto Raptors.
"That was the best feeling in my life. I played under Hall of Fame player and coach Lenny Wilkins. It was a great experience."
After a season with the Raptors, he was traded to the Denver Nuggets, where a groin injury kept him off the court for all but two games before he was released.
It was then that his globetrotting career took off.
"I played everywhere: Europe, the Far East, wherever I was needed. For the past three years, I've been playing for a team in China called Shaanxi Topsun. I haven't been able to get to grips with the lingo though. It's a very tough language, because every word can mean five different things. Depends on the intonation."
Joseph says that he likes Odessa, but will head back to the United States after the season ends. He misses his family in Albany, New York. There's another reason he doesn't want to settle down in Odessa, though.
"The food is so fattening - everything comes with mayonnaise," he said. "With my appetite, if I stayed for too long I'd turn into the Michelin Man!"
Gerald Harty is an Odessa freelance writer.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
Political ‘Faces’
Ahmet Tanyu: On Starting Up
A Kodak Moment
with Andrey Pleskonos
Philip Morris's Raman Berent International & Experienced
Ian Boag: European neighbor
The Velvet Songstress
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