He’s famous in the Italian basketball world for his decade-long career in the bel Paese and loved by sports fans in Pistoia for the three successful seasons he played for the team between 1989 and 1992. This April, in a sort of homecoming, Ron Rowan became the owner of A.S. Pistoia Basket 2000.
Back in 1992, you famously remarked how you wanted to come back to Pistoia as the manager. How did the process of making that dream come true actually happen?
I don’t know if it was ever a dream. Three or four years ago, it just became something that could possibly happen. After going through a few other opportunities, this one came up and it seemed to fit at the right time and the right place.
You obviously have a connection with Pistoia. Looking back, it’s where you played three seasons during your professional career as a basketball player compared to the Italian teams where you moved around a lot. How much has Pistoia changed over the years?
I don’t think Pistoia has changed at all. Obviously you have a new generation of fans, but the fans that fell in love with the game when I played are about my age. Everyone’s pretty familiar with me and I’m familiar with them. It’s pretty neat, but as far as changes go, there aren’t many.
How has Italian basketball changed since you were a player?
The biggest difference is that, for the first eight years when I played in Italy, you were only allowed to have two foreign players on a team. Now you’re allowed to have six.
You also have a youth team, right? How much are you cultivating young Italian players with a view to the future?
We have the under 15, under 17 and under 19. Absolutely. We’re trying to develop as many good players as we can. Obviously with the rules being the way they are, those six foreign players make it hard for the Italian players to find space in the Serie A, it’s difficult.
The way basketball talent gets to the NBA in America seems quite schematic. Is it more interesting to scout young players in Europe?
We’re always looking at young players. The system is different in America, but in a way it’s also a little bit similar. Over in America, you have to go to college for at least one year and then if you’re good enough, you’re able to go to the NBA. If you’re not, you stay in college for one, two, three or four years, and if you’re good enough, you’re able to go to the NBA. In Italy, everything is the club. Similar to America is that if you start in a club and you’re good enough, you can move on and up and up. So, it’s different, but similar, if that makes sense.
Tell us about the differences between American and Italian basketball.
There are definitely differences, there’s no question about that. If you want to compare the two, the NBA is all about entertainment: the way they play, the rules of the game, the fan experience in the arena. It’s all about how much money they can make and the entertainment dollars. In Europe it’s different: the fever, the rules are different, the play is different. They are two different games really.
What are the challenges for you as an American coming to Italy and taking over the ownership of an Italian sports business?
With me having such long playing experience here and understanding how things work and how things get done, nothing has really been a surprise. To answer that question, I would fall back on the experience I had when I was here playing all over Italy, so I got to see how different owners did their business and that’s helped me in a transition to do this now.
You’re currently ninth in the standings. What are your plans for this season and for the next three to five years?
We have a young team. We probably have the youngest group of foreign players in all of Italy right here. So we just need to continue to build every day to become the best team that we can become and see what happens at the end. It’s all about the process of learning about how you become a better team and then you build off of that going into the following year. So, the goal in three to five years is to be one of the best teams in Italy.
It’s a great resource to have a team like Pistoia Basket near Florence. How did you intend to enlarge the audience, given the scope of the whole of the metropolitan area?
We actually spoke with the president of the Tuscany Region about this matter. As we’re the only Serie A team in all of Tuscany, we can represent Tuscany in a manner that can pull everybody together. I think that only through unity also outside of Pistoia will we be able to form a good team by being on the same wavelength at a regional level. That’s the only way that we will also be able to compete with the likes of Milan and Bologna, which are the best in Italy. If everyone stays separate, those teams are always going to win. Or do we want to stay apart, be small and try to survive?
If somebody’s thinking of coming and seeing Pistoia Basket, what can they expect from the experience?
You cannot get the full experience until you come into PalaCarrara to see and hear it in person. That’s the biggest thing I would tell somebody. When you see it and hear it, then you can understand the passion of the fans and the atmosphere of the game.
