Quick – who's the leading scorer in the Spanish ACB basketball league? In Europe's best league – the former home of stars like Pau Gasol, Serge Ibaka, and Ricky Rubio – it's not a young Spanish hotshot or an NBA player who escaped the lockout. It's a 34 year-old from Harrisburg, Pa., former Lebanon Valley College star Andy Panko '99.

Panko, now in his fifth season with Lagun Aro GBC in the northeastern Basque city of San Sebastián, is having arguably the best season of his professional career. He's lighting up the ACB – widely considered the world's second-best league after the NBA – for 18.8 points per game this season, putting Lagun Aro on the brink of the playoffs for the first time in the club's history.

The former NCAA Division III player of the year remains LVC's all-time leading scorer with 2,515 points, and he was named to d3hoops.com's “Team of the Decade” in 2010 as one of D-III's all-time greats. After graduating, he had tryouts with the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Lakers, but caught on as a star with the minor-league North Dakota Wizards, where he was named MVP of the CBA in 2003 before moving to Spain. In nine years there – with a brief stint in Greece – he has helped Lagun Aro achieve promotion to the top-level ACB league, and was named MVP of the LEB Oro (Spain's second division) in 2008.

Panko recently spoke with GoDutchmen.com about his life in Spain, playing abroad, and what he took away from his education and experience at Lebanon Valley College.
 

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Q: For an American fan or LVC student who isn't familiar with the Spanish league, can you describe the level and style of play and how it compares to the NBA?
A: In a nutshell, the Spanish league is probably the second-best league, outside of the NBA it's probably the best league in the world to play in. In Europe it's the best country and the best league to play in. It's kind of difficult to get into being that you're only allowed two Americans on each team in the ACB. But once you get your foot in the door you're pretty much going to have a job here. This will be my ninth year right now playing in Spain, so I've been pretty fortunate.

It's not like the NBA where it's all entertainment. In Spain you play one game a week and it's kind of like do-or-die. All the fans, all the city gears up for this one game on the weekend. If you win it's like you've won the Super Bowl, if you lose it's like the end of the world and the papers kill you. That's the life of a basketball player in Europe – it's not just Spain, it's all over Europe.

Q: Do you enjoy that atmosphere and mentality?
A: Absolutely. Coming from Division III I was humbled very early. I didn't have the luxury of playing Division I basketball. They credit hard work over here. They like people who are good people. If you're a good person, if you work hard, then they'll accept you. I found it very easy to assimilate to the Spanish lifestyle and European basketball, because over here, it's not just running and dunking and athletic like in the NBA, here you have be smart, you have to think, you have to be able to pass the ball, and those are the kinds of things I learned playing Division III basketball at a small school. I think that actually helped me making the transition a lot easier.

Q: What is your favorite thing about playing abroad?
A: Look, I'm 34 now. I have a wife and two kids, and if they're happy, that makes me happy. I had my dream about playing in the NBA but that dream has long since passed a couple years ago when I knew my way of life was over here in Europe. I like the way the people accept you over here. I'm American but I've been here for nine years and they treat me like I'm one of theirs. This is my fifth year in San Sebastián so the people in the city have accepted me and embraced me as one of their own. I like that sense that our organization is like a family. We're a small organization but they treat everybody with respect, which I like and I think is pretty cool.

Q: If you look at your team's roster you have guys from eight different countries, plus Spanish coaches. How do you deal with the language barrier on a daily basis?
A: I've been fortunate my entire career  over here, 90% of the people speak English. In basketball, English is the universal language. All my coaches speak perfect English, all the players – Spanish guys included – all speak English. Yeah it's a Spanish-speaking country, but everybody in the basketball world over here speaks English. Even the press people, although I give my interviews in Spanish. I've been here nine years, they expect me to learn some Spanish – I don't speak fluent Spanish but I do all my interviews in Spanish, and as long as I try they accept you.

Small world: Pablo Laso, my old coach, was a foreign exchange student at Carlisle High School, and he speaks English like you or I. He was my coach the last four years, now he's with Real Madrid. Now our new coach, Sito Alonso, speaks perfect English. So I've been lucky so far that everybody in Spain speaks perfect English.

Q: Did you ever imagine, coming out of Harrisburg and going to LVC as a freshman, that you'd end up spending your time after college seeing the world and playing basketball for a living?
A: (Laughs) You know, I thought about that a long time ago. It's funny – I live in Europe, this is my home. I joke with my friends that my home in Hershey is kind of like my vacation home. I don't want to say I'm European – I'm American – but this is where I belong right now for 10 months out of the year, and I'm only home for the summer. Going to Lebanon Valley obviously you have dreams about playing in the NBA, playing professional sports, making money playing basketball.

But how many people really get a chance to do that? I've been very fortunate, to have played well enough at Lebanon Valley to be noticed by a couple of teams in the NBA, and I've paid my dues, playing in the minor leagues for two or three years, bussing everywhere, living in North Dakota. I put my dues in, and I was very lucky to get to Spain. It's such a hard league to break into, but once I got here I was fortunate enough to stay here.  Like I said, there are only two Americans per team, so it's not a lot – 18 teams, so that's just 36 spots available, and some teams don't have any Americans.  Just goes to show it's very tough to break into.

Q: What kind of life lessons, something beyond basketball, do you think you took away from the LVC basketball program?
A: I was this small white kid who went to a Division III school, and now I'm playing top-level basketball. You don't have to be the most athletic, the tallest, the most physically gifted player to play professional sports. I didn't go to Duke. I didn't go to North Carolina. I made it from Division III, Lebanon Valley College. I tell people all the time that if they can see me make a living playing basketball, then anybody can do it. You don't have to be the most gifted athlete or go to the best college – you just have to put in the hard work and you're a good person, they'll find you up here.

Like I said, I had to pay my dues – I didn't go right from Lebanon Valley to come over here and play. I had to make $200 a week living on the bus and in hotels with my wife (then girlfriend), and I think persistence and hard work helped me. But look – at Lebanon Valley, we bussed everywhere! We didn't get per diem or stay in fancy hotels.  I'm still here playing basketball, and I think it's a tribute to what I learned from my parents and learning to be humble and thankful that you have a job.

That goes a long way over here in Spain. They don't look for the guy who went to Duke or North Carolina who is the best athlete. They look for guys who are hard workers who know the game of basketball who aren't going to have problems off the court. Some of these other countries – Italy, Greece, Russia – players are going over there, but their careers are a lot shorter. They have problems off the court, they have problems with the team, and they just don't want that in Spain.

Q: If somebody in Spain asked you, what is NCAA Division III all about, what would you say to them?
A: I look back on it now and it's like night and day. Division III, I try to explain it… looking back now, guys can play basketball but it's not as athletically and professionally dominating. It's a lot different – when I played Division III and I tried to make the leap to the NBA, I didn't realize how athletically gifted and how fast the game is. It's kind of like when football players explain going from college to the pros, it's just night and day how fast the game is and how everybody is good. Well in Division III, you have a handful of very good players, but when you make that jump, it's amazing how many gifted athletes there are out in there in the world and how fast the game is.

But over here in Europe – the European game is more like the 1980s, early 1990s style in the NBA. Passing the ball, playing defense, not necessarily the run-and-jump-and-dunk and all that sort of stuff. It's more like that over here where the emphasis is on defense, passing, team camaraderie. And that's what the difference is.