By Adriana Yarkin, Copy Editor
This year, Italian exchange student Michele Piatti is playing basketball as a member of the VHS team — over 5,000 miles from his home in Milan.
He has traveled to the U.S. on two previous occasions, both times for basketball camps on the East Coast.
Piatti began playing when he was eight years old, influenced by his older brother’s enthusiasm for the sport. For the past three years he has played with Olympia Milan, which is a club whose top team competes in the First League, Italy’s equivalent of the NBA. The club is formed, in part, by international players.
“Last year, there were some people from Africa and from East Europe and all over Italy,” Piatti said.
Piatti practiced with the U-18 team four to five days per week, traveling an hour each time from the south side of Milan where he lived to the north side where practices were held. He enjoyed spending time with his friends and playing basketball, though he had very little down time due to the rigorous nature of Italy’s school system.
Italian high schools span five years, and students graduate when they are 19. Schools are categorized into several types, including linguistic, scientific, classical and trades, and students must commit to one at age 14.
Students spend six days a week in the classroom, and much of their time outside of school is spent studying for various oral and written exams.
“In Italy, school is way more stressful than [in the United States],” Piatti said.
Students must take a four-part final exam at the end of each school year in June.
“It’s very difficult, and if you don’t pass it, you have to repeat a year,” Piatti said, estimating that approximately 30 percent of students end up repeating a year. “It’s common — it’s not like a big fault of your life.”
In July of this year, VHS basketball coach Andy Sears got in touch with him. Piatti was surprised when he got here by how much the players seemed to know about him already, particularly considering that he knew almost nothing coming here.
“I knew that there was an island … near Seattle — nothing else,” he said. “Seriously, nothing else.”
Nonetheless, he has found the team to be an excellent way to make friends, and its members have been integral in his adjustment to VHS culture and American society as a whole — offering everything from advice to rides.
“It’s been nice; they’ve helped me a lot,” Piatti said.
Especially during the first few weeks, the greatest challenge he faced was the language, but his time spent with the team helped him to overcome that, as well as helped him to find a place in the school and adjust to the differences.
According to Piatti, basketball in Italy differs slightly from the game here.
“The rules are a little bit different here, and the style of play also,” Piatti said. “Maybe in Italy we are a little bit more physical.”
His team in Milan was made up of larger people, as well — the tallest player for Olympia Milan was 7 feet 1 inch tall, while Piatti, at 6 feet 2 inches, is one of the tallest players here.
When he returns to Italy next summer, Piatti will spend much of his time studying, particularly for courses such as Latin and Italian which he cannot take here. He is on track to graduate from his high school after next year, and will then likely go on to study economics or business management at a university.
He will continue to play basketball when he returns home and plans to continue the sport through university, but is certain that he does not want to go professional.
“It’s tough,” he said. “With my skills, I would probably earn not a lot of money — not enough — so it doesn’t make any sense to go pro.”
His stay on Vashon will extend for the duration of this school year.
“It’ll be just enough time to get an idea of what it’s like here,” Piatti said. “Staying for just six months doesn’t give you the same experience as staying one entire year.”
Piatti is currently staying with the Lyons family through an exchange program called Ergon, which facilitates exchanges specifically between Italy and the Pacific Northwest. He is earning credit for most of the classes that he is taking here, and he believes that his time spent on the VHS basketball team is improving his skill in the game.
He has made many American friends throughout the school, though he can be heard in the lunch line speaking in his native tongue with his fellow Italian exchange students, Amadeo Gallina and Matilde Leonardi.
“The pizza here is quite good,” Piatti said. “It’s not as bad as I expected — it’s not that bad.”
