Intramural Star Goes Abroad, Gets Chance At Hoop Dream

A few months ago, I wrote a column about the role of sports in the lives of high school athletes turned college has-beens. Many Columbia students would kill for the chance to relive their glory days and play varsity sports while they are here. Alas, college is a time when we give up our professional dreams and get on with our lives, experiencing things like the intellectual impact of Thomas Hobbes and the joys of studying abroad in foreign countries. But wouldn’t it be great if we could study abroad while revisiting our athletic primes by playing varsity sports for our foreign exchange school?

Ben Teitelbaum, CC ’08, did just that when he spent the Fall 2006 semester abroad in London. If you know Ben, then you know that he is a self-proclaimed four-sport intramural all-star—dodgeball, football, softball, basketball—and that he is a huge basketball fanatic. Ben is a guy who almost got kicked out of one Columbia intramural football game because of excessive celebration. When I asked him about his love of basketball, Teitelbaum told me, “I’m a baller, always have been, always will be.” While Ben planned on gaining intercultural experience and international exposure during his time in London, he did not plan on traveling from city to city representing The University College London as a varsity basketball player.

When Ben arrived at the UCL in September 2006, he attended a school activity fair out of curiosity. “I had no idea what I was looking for. I was just looking to meet people,” Ben said. While at the fair, he noticed that there was a booth for the school basketball team. When he saw the booth he asked:

“Is the is varsity team?”

“Do we play other schools?”

“Can I be a part of this even though I just walked up three minutes ago?”

“Is this serious?”

The answer to all of those questions was “yes” and on the following Saturday morning, Teitelbaum found himself at a 10 a.m. basketball tryout. Can you imagine what would happen if coach Joe Jones had an open basketball tryout one random morning in early September? If nothing else, it would certainly be riveting to watch people leave everything on the court in order to get a chance to play Division I college basketball. At the tryout, Ben described how the player-coach (more on that later), told them to line up and run simple right-handed and left-handed lay-up drills. After 20 minutes of lay-ups, the coach gathered the tryout participants together and promptly cut about half of them. For the remainder of the tryouts, the 30 remaining men ran three-on-three drills until the coach told them to stop. I use the term men because all those at the tryout ranged from anywhere between 18 and 30 years old. Unlike here in the United States, the regulations pertaining to English collegiate athletic eligibility are extremely relaxed. If you’re a student at an English university, then you’re allowed to participate in varsity athletics, regardless of whether you’re a law student, medical student, undergraduate, or involved in any other academic field to which your intellectual curiosity might lead you. Following the strenuous and arduous three-on-three games, the UCL player-coach picked his team on the spot. No deliberation. No consultation. He just picked his team right then and there and sent everyone else home.

Since I’m writing this story, one can deduce that Ben Teitelbaum was selected for the UCL varsity basketball team. “I was better than just about everyone else on the team. It was a joke.” While playing basketball for UCL, Teitelbaum competed against other British universities like the University of Kent, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary University of London, and King’s College London. His team’s record that season was 6-5. In Ben’s first college basketball game ever, he started at point guard and willed his team to victory, driving to basket and kicking it out to an open teammate for a last-second, game-winning three-pointer. “It was a pretty big deal for me. I mean, it was my first college basketball game.”

Ben played with a motley crew of characters. His teammates included:

Theo — a 25 year-old small forward from Greece who regularly listened to death metal and led the team in scoring.

Yash — a 22 year-old Indian guy from the Bay Area who was a full-time student at UCL (I repeat, not an exchange student) and “thought that he was Monta Ellis.”

Andreas — the team’s 23 year-old player-coach, who was a graduate student studying biology in an attempt to invent self-cleaning glass, which could be used in skyscrapers and other large buildings.

Malcolm — a 22 year-old from Martinique who before the start of the season got injured while hiking in the Himalayas and was subsequently unable to play. Ben said that Malcolm was the most buff guy he’s ever seen and that he could also do pushups while on his head in a handstand position.

Alan — An 18 year-old from Kazakhstan, the home of Borat.

Lorenzo — A big Italian guy who frequently sang “That’s Amore” in the shower.

Despite the many entertaining characters on the team, basketball wasn’t popular at UCL. He says that most of his games were played with virtually no fans or supporters in the stands. “It was like playing pickup basketball at Columbia.” According to Teitelbaum, most of the glory, women, and spoils for athletes in England go to rugby and soccer players. The disinterest in basketball across the Atlantic is a product of the natural difference in culture—being a basketball player in London is the equivalent of being a rugby player here in New York. For the most part, nobody cares.

At the end of the day, the fanfare isn’t the reason that true basketball players stay with the game. Teitelbaum said that playing varsity basketball for UCL was one of the greatest things he’s ever done and that he misses the experience daily. Some of his on-court accomplishments while playing for UCL include a triple-double, a game during which he had 19 second-half points (including the last seven in what was a four-point win), and even a two-handed alley-oop (albeit on a bent and crooked hoop).

If you’re a former high school athlete who misses the camaraderie and adrenaline rush of varsity sports, make sure to look into what opportunities are available for you if you decide to study abroad. When reflecting on his experience playing varsity basketball abroad, Ben Teitelbaum said, “One very positive aspect of UCL basketball was that it brought people together from all over the world. There were players from around 10 different countries, and the basketball court was the perfect common ground to start from before we all took the time to learn about other cultures. There was great camaraderie on the squad. During probably the best and craziest four months of my life, I always wanted to make time for this rag-tag bunch of guys.”

Jelani Johnson is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in history.
Sports@columbiaspectator.com