The transition from playing college basketball in the friendly confines of Patrick Gymnasium to playing professionally in Sicily before a profane, hostile crowd was a challenging one for T.J. Sorrentine ’05. And needing to hustle out of the local grocery store because he was being sworn at in Italian by the home fans (his team had lost the night before) wasn’t quite something he’d experienced at Burlington’s City Market.
“In Sicily the community was heavily influenced by mafia, so things were pretty intense, but I left with some interesting stories to tell,” says Sorrentine, now an assistant coach at Brown University. “Playing in Portugal and Slovenia was amazing. I grew to really love the European lifestyle.”
Sorrentine is among a growing number of alumni from UVM’s varsity athletics programs who have made a living playing professional sports internationally. Financially, contracts typically include free housing and a car with a salary range from $20,000 to well into the six figures. Most athletes spend only a few years overseas, but describe the experience as one of the most significant of their lives.
“For someone who grew up in Vermont and went to school next to her hometown, seeing a new culture was a real eye-opener,” says basketball player Katie McNamara ’05, who played in Switzerland and Ireland. Her first stop in Shiasso, the southernmost municipality in rural Switzerland (population 15,300), wasn’t easy, however, as none of her teammates or her coach spoke English. “It was pretty isolating,” she says. “I was the only American and most of my teammates had jobs or went to school, so there wasn’t a lot of bonding.” McNamara left the team early, returned to the states and worked in Boston for eighteen months, then signed with a team in Ireland. “It was a much better fit. The people were really friendly and I got to experience another culture I otherwise never would have seen,” says McNamara, who crossed paths in Europe with Taylor Coppenrath ’05 and Martin Klimes ’07, both of whom were playing basketball in Spain at the time, as well as hockey players Jeff Corey ’06 and Oriel McHugh ’04.
Overseas opportunities in soccer, basketball, hockey, and lacrosse continue to increase, especially for female athletes. Sheri Turnbull ’94, who competed for teams in Portugal and Turkey, was one of the first alumnae to play overseas. May Kotsopoulos ’10 recently inked a deal with Dan Ano Liosa in Athens, making her the sixth player in program history to play professionally. Women’s hockey is sending its first alums overseas as 2010 graduates Jackie Thode and Chelsea Furlani are heading to Vienna, Austria; Melanie Greene to ESC Planegg, Germany; and Kristen Olychuck to Leksands, Sweden.
Other alumni athletes have traveled the world through a different route by representing their countries in international competition. Courtnay Pilypaitis ’10 earned a spot on the 2010 Canadian National Team that competed in the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic. Dawn Cressman ’03, who played professionally in England and Australia, represented her native Canada on its national team and traveled to Europe, Brazil, and the Caribbean. “Playing for your country is an incredible experience,” says Cressman, who runs a health and wellness program for the Ontario government. “You get to travel the world and play the sport you love.”
For some, the time spent overseas is an opportunity to continue to develop and hope for a break into professional sports in the United States, a formula that worked for Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas ’97. As Coppenrath excels in European basketball, a shot at the NBA remains on the horizon. Depending on how his prospects work out with the Los Angeles Clippers, it may also be a path for Marqus Blakely ’10.
Martin Wilde ’01, who has played hockey in multiple countries for the better part of a decade, decided to hang up his skates this year at age thirty-three. The Burlington-area has been a summer home for him and his wife, former UVM skier Sarah Laidlaw Wilde ’01, and the couple will now live here full-time. Many international athletes, Wilde among them, note that they’ve eventually felt a pull to move on to long-term career opportunities and a more settled lifestyle.
“By the time I decided to go to Italy for the last three seasons my dreams of playing at a higher level were gone,” says Wilde, who played for the Providence Bruins before signing a contract in 2002 with an elite team in his native Sweden. “We are fortunate to have spent three winters in the beautiful Italian Dolomites. We got to travel a ton, see many amazing places, learn a new language, and connect with fellow UVMers living abroad. As you get older, though, you start thinking about your future after sports.”
Wilde will retire from international professional sports with plenty of memories. None, though, can likely match his first season in Italy, when his team won the Italian championship for the first time in thirty-two years. The victory was on the road in Milan, where the fans are notoriously rowdy and include hooligans who turn to hockey since they’re behavior has earned them a ban from soccer games. After Wilde’s team won game six in overtime to capture the title, angry fans from Milan rushed the ice and stole the championship trophy. Wilde and his teammates skated a victory lap with the third-place trophy instead.
“They stormed the ice and attacked our guy with the cup,” Wilde remembers. “We never saw it again. But I knew some guys on the other team who said they saw it at parties later that year in Milan. Their fans were still partying with our cup.”
This article originally appeared in the fall 2010 issue of Vermont Quarterly magazine. The publication is available online or in print by request from University Communications, (802) 656-2005.