Profile.
Eric Palm is out of a basketball family, but not until his last years as a teenager did he know that Americans could also play basketball in Europe. An adventure in Iceland open his eyes, and since then he fell in love with Germany and airplanes.
Translation by Brit Sørensen – original title (in Danish): Bakken portræt – en rejsende i basketball (by Dennis Bjerre Christiansen, Århus Stiftstidende, 10. februar 2017)
Eric Palm
Born: 16 May 1987 in Rockford, Illinois, USA
Height/weight: 188 cm / 85 kg
Nationality: American
Current club: Bakken Bears
Position: Guard
Previous clubs: 2016 Bashkimi Prizren, Kosovo. 2016 BK Iskra Svit, Slovakia. 2014-16 Giessen 46ers, Germany. 2013-14 Chemnitz 99, Germany. 2012-13 IR Reykjavik, Iceland. 2011-12 Thor AK, Iceland. 2011 Rockford Riverdawgs, USA. 2010-11 Thor Thorl, Iceland. 2009 Southern Illinois Truth, USA. 2005-09 McKendree (college).
In one armchair you find a guy called Mikkel. In another, a guy called Eric.
If they were introduced to one another, they would probably have a lot to talk about. However, they do not know each other, do not speak together.
They have different reasons to be here. And destiny simply brought them to this same place for about an hour, and then they may never meet again. They are staying in the same hotel in downtown Aarhus for one day only.
Mikkel’s surname is Hansen. In Denmark, it is general knowledge that he – apart from being an Olympic Champion – is one of the best handball players in the world. On this random Tuesday, he is resting in a hotel in Aarhus, because the Danish national handball squad is preparing for the World Handball Championships.
Mikkel Hansen loves basketball, particularly the NBA. However, he does not know Eric.
Because even though Eric’s surname is Palm, and he is an American native who plays basketball, he never played in the NBA.
On the other hand, he asks ”the World what Championships?” Because that is what they say in the US, where they use their hands for all types of sports, but never heard about handball.
***
Eric Palm is nearly 2 meters tall and has beard stubbles – raw, woodcutter-style. And then he is a good basketball player.
He is staying in a hotel, because he did not yet find an apartment in Aarhus. He was told that it is difficult to find an apartment in town these days due to the winter-term commencement of study.
He ended up in Aarhus as he nearly had to flee from Kosovo just before Christmas. Bakken Bears greeted him with open arms and a paycheck. Eric Palm needed a job; Bears needed a hard-working guard.
This is the story of Eric Palm, a basketball-playing world traveler for seven years and counting. A lonely life in which the salary is experiences.
***
He usually tells people that he is from Chicago, even though he is not, to avoid having to explain that his home town Rockford is close to ‘the windy city’ in the state of Illinois.
It is situated in the American mid-west and is a “blue-collar city”, as they call it over there. Meaning a city for the working class – typically wearing blue collars.
They like to play basketball in this part of the US. So does Eric Palm. His two older brothers also played basketball, and as the youngest sibling Eric had to struggle under the rim hanging from the garage door to make points. Today, he thinks his toughness is a result of the beatings he had to take from his older brothers while struggling under the rim.
And maybe that is why Eric Palm managed to take his basketball skills further than his brothers.
He started playing at the age of five, and his special talent was noticed in high school. By the look of things, he obviously made a big impression on local newspapers, as they still follow his basketball career. Whether he plays in Iceland, Germany or Denmark.
***
Just like many other talented US athletes, Eric Palm went to college and played college basketball for four years.
And just like many others, he did not expect to be able to take his skills with the orange ball any further than that. He studied to become a teacher, and since the NBA did not offer him a million-dollar contract, he was facing a completely ordinary career path.
However, when he heard some of the older guys in his college team talk about playing in Europe, he paid attention. They would actually get paid for it over there.
A historical number of athletes from Eric Palm’s high school class dreamt about spending many years playing basketball. According to a survey published in the local newspaper Rockford Star in 2013, Palm is the only one out of a long list of names who is still making a living playing basketball. And according to the newspaper, he was not the one among these with the biggest talent – by far.
***
However, Palm gradually improved. Starting in 2009 when he graduated from McKendree University, Illinois, and took a chance by getting in touch with a club in Iceland.
He played for one season in Thor Thorl. In his own words, he had to adjust to the European style of play, so it was the perfect place for him to start despite of the level not being extraordinarily high. The local basketball players there had regular jobs on the side.
He went back to the US for the summer break, ready to take on a new adventure. However, due to an NBA lockout, the good players were pushed further down through the system, meaning there was no longer an open spot for Eric Palm in Europe.
He then played for the local club Rockford Riverdawgs alongside local legends that used to be his childhood heroes. This turned out to be the only break from his European career so far.
Already during the fall, he made contact with Thor AK, a club in Akureyri – a mountainous town of 18,000 inhabitants in the Northern part of Iceland.
– It is a beautiful place, but I don’t miss the depressive lack of sunshine and the lamb heads and Viking food they eat up there, Eric Palm grinningly states.
– But the people up there are great, and my time there taught me a lot about life as a professional basketball player.
He spent three years in Iceland – the last year in the capital Reykjavik playing for IR.
It was time to up the ante. However, Eric Palm would never want to be without those years on the volcano island.
– I consider myself a sociable person. I never started in a new team without making friends there. I quickly adapt to new surroundings, but during those first couple of years, it was tough not knowing anyone and having so much spare time with no practice. But you get used to it, and the technology we have today makes it easy to talk to people from home via Facetime.
***
Next destination was Chemnitz close to the Czech border in the former East Germany.
This would turn out to be the first of three years for Eric Palm in the country south of Denmark, Germany – and also the toughest one.
– Not a lot of people there spoke English very well, because they had been speaking Russian before the wall came down. So communicating was a bit difficult. But the following year, I came to Giessen and the local club 46ers. It’s a university city like Aarhus, so there were lots of young people. They had great traditions for basketball, and the club had significant importance for the city. The Germans are great at promoting the team and players, and you got the feeling that it really mattered to people.
To Eric Palm, the two years spent in Giessen, close to Frankfurt in the mid-western part of Germany, have been his best playing basketball – so far.
During his first season with Giessen 46ers in 2014-15, the team was promoted to the Bundesliga.
– We finished third in the regular season and lost the last game in which I made zero from eight behind the three-point line. So, personally I didn’t come into the playoffs with a lot of confidence. But we had a shooting machine, so I made a lot of shots at practice.
That helped. In the playoffs, he nearly scored on 70% of his shots from the three-point line, and the team won all eight games.
– The city was ecstatic, because they had made it back to the Bundesliga, having been relegated a few years before during to financial problems.
Eric Palm also spent a year in the best German league (Bundesliga). The highest level for him so far. During this year, he helped beat the Euroleague team Bamburg, but his team could also lose to everyone this season. Palm averaged 10 points in the Bundesliga.
***
In his own opinion, Eric Palm’s shooting skills is his biggest strength. In Iceland, he averaged 25 points a game, but the scoring stats have decreased along with the increase of level.
Prior to this season, he went back to the USA for holiday in the hopes that a fine season in the Bundesliga would open up new doors for him.
However, as he did not receive the anticipated offers, he decided to make a 60-day trial contract with BK Iskra Svit from Slovakia.
– The plan was to show my worth in Europe, because it’s easier to get a contract while you’re actually here compared to when you are back in the States. And the plan worked. I played six games and scored 22 points on average. Then I got a contract in Kosovo, says Eric Palm.
At first, this was a good move, but the time spent in the former Yugoslavia would become his most difficult time yet as a basketball player. In fact, it even made him realize if it was worth it living his life travelling and shooting hoops.
– It was no fun playing basketball for those 50 days I spent in Kosovo. I seriously considered if it was about time to head back to the States and get a regular job. I have nothing bad to say about the people who live there, but all of a sudden I really appreciated the organisations that I had been part of previously and what they did for me.
For starters, Eric Palm explains, he did not get paid on time during his time in Kosovo.
– And the gyms where we played were not heated. Sometimes it felt like it was warmer outside than inside the gym, where we could see on the scoring board that there was one degree celsius.
The guard moves on to talk about false promises and a fan crowd being on the extent of passionate.
– I enjoyed playing in that atmosphere, but it was not safe. Fans in Kosovo are very dedicated but also wild and noisy. If you made a good shot, they would throw coins and pens at you. And at my last game, a maroon went off one meter away from me.
He basically had to pack up his bags under the cover of darkness and head to Aarhus.
– I fell in love with Denmark from the first day. It reminds me a lot of Germany and by that also the States. My family also enjoys the fact that I’m living in more peaceful surroundings here.
KB Bashkimi Prizren was not happy to lose the team’s American profile. However, eventually the chairman of the basketball federation got involved in the case and decided that the player, based on his experiences, was entitled to cancel his contract.
***
Eric Palm did not celebrate Christmas with his family for many years, because he has been in Europe playing basketball.
At times, it’s a tough and lonely life, he admits. But he also likes it.
– I like being out and about in the cities I come to. I’m from a family who loves taking pictures, and I love learning the background of the places I come to. A few days ago, I rode down to the docks by bike to look at the waterfront of Aarhus, and I saw some amazing buildings down there.
However, far from all the Americans who come to Bakken Bears explore the city. Instead, they spend a lot of time in front of their PlayStation and online staying in touch with people back home.
However, Eric Palm takes pride in making an appearance.
– It’s good to be out there and for people to see us. This city gives us an opportunity to play basketball, and so it’s important for me to get out there to show people that I’m no super star or Rockstar who just wants to stay at home. I want to adopt the Danish culture. Soon I will be 30 years old, and I don’t know for how long I can keep this going. And who knows if I will ever come here again, so this is my chance to see this part of the world.
– I expect to spend the rest of my life in the US when I’m done playing basketball. So the more stories I get to take home from here to tell my future kids and grandkids, the better. And maybe those stories will motivate them to play basketball and explore the world in the same way.
***
So far, Eric Palm will be in Denmark until May. And who knows what kind of stories he will take home with him.
One thing he hopes for is to be able to put a Danish Championship title on his resume. And then maybe he can tell people about the day he ran into a guy who was the best in the world at a type of sports that no-one really knows back home.
– I feel lucky to be doing what I do. Some people live an entire life without leaving the US. I’ve already worked in five different countries in Europe competing at a high level. Some people who are more gifted than me don’t even get that chance.
Do you think that everyone would be able to live the kind of life you do by being on the road and playing basketball for a new club every year?
– No, I don’t think that this kind of life is for everyone. I have friends from small towns and families who are not used to living in the city and 7,000 km away from their family. I’m a sociable and open-minded person, but it was difficult for me in the beginning too. It takes courage to leave everyone behind at home and push the real life five-ten years into the future, depending on how long you want to play basketball for a living.
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