Jesse Sanders goes pro in Italy

Time and again, spectators who watched Jesse Sanders play basketball in the Vines Center commented, “Wow, that young man is going places.”

They were right — Jesse Sanders is going places. He and his wife Courtney, whom he married over the summer, went to Jesi, Italy, to be exact.

Sanders, who made a name for himself at Liberty as the only NCAA basketball player ever to record a triple-double in all four of his seasons, packed up and moved to the small town on the eastern coast of Italy to play professional basketball in the Lega Due for the Aurora Basket Jesi.

Lega Due, translated as “League Two,” is the second highest level of professional basketball played in Italy. Sanders’ team is supported as most teams are, through corporate and private sponsors. The two chief sponsors are Fileni — a chicken company that Sanders likens to Tyson in the U.S. — and BPA — a large Italian bank. Because of this, the team is commonly referred to as Fileni BPA Jesi.

League rules indicate that teams are only permitted to have two American players on the roster. Sanders’ American teammate, surprisingly, is Eric Griffin — a center who played against the Flames as a member of the Campbell University Fighting Camels.

A language barrier, you say? Hardly.

According to Sanders, most teammates speak a little English, and he is picking up a little Italian. Besides, basketball is chalked full of hand signals which allow court communication to be largely non-verbal.

To keep up with Sanders’ new career, stay tuned to future issues of the
Liberty Champion.