LancasterOnline.com
School’s over, not basketball
By Mike Gross
Sunday News

Published: Dec 03, 2005 11:34 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Jerry Johnson is from inner-city Lancaster. He went to college hard by Trenton, N.J.

So naturally, after graduation, he’s settled in, uh, Poland. Which ought to give you an idea how much basketball means to Johnson, a former point guard at McCaskey High and Rider University.

“I’m pretty happy with how everything is going,’’ Johnson said Friday by telephone from the Polish city of Starogard, Gdanski, where he lives and works.

“I’m making a pretty good living, and I’m kind of staying on everybody’s radar.’’

Johnson is playing for Polpharma, a team named for its sponsor, a pharmaceutical firm, in the top-level Polish league. It’s one of the top 10, but not top five, leagues in Europe.

“The basketball’s pretty good,’’ Johnson said. “It’s a lot more physical here. A lot of the body stuff and hand-checking that’s a foul in America, they don’t call here. “It’s hard to get used to, but it makes you tougher.’’ He seems to have acclimated himself. Through nine games, Johnson is fourth in the league in scoring at about 20 points per game, and third in assists with about five per game.

The team is 6-3, with all three losses by a total of seven points.

“We should have won all of them,’’ Johnson said. As the starting point guard, Johnson has the ball, runs the show and leads the team in minutes.

He’s one of the league-limit of three Americans on Polpharma. The others are Damien Kinloch, a forward from Tennessee Tech, and Dennis Stanton, a shooting guard who played at Ursinus.

Stanton led all of college basketball in scoring in 2003-04, averaging almost 32 points per game. He dropped 55 on F&M in a game that year.

Last year, Stanton played in Denmark and averaged 41. This year, in a better league, he’s averaging 15.

Kinloch, also averaging about 15 and leading the team in rebounding, is married, and has his wife with him in Poland. Johnson’s girlfriend and their 20-month-old daughter are also there, so they and the Kinlochs spend a lot of time together.

“It’s not like [my family’s] alone on an island,’’ Johnson said.

The team has provided Johnson an apartment and car. Games are only once a week, but the team practices almost every day and sometimes does a separate conditioning session in addition to practice.

Johnson said the food is fine — “Lots of chicken and potatoes, vegetables, more fresh food, less processed. It’s not crazy food, like if you were living in China or something.’’

He has a satellite setup so he can watch the same TV we can, including NBA games.

There’s no way to completely get around the language barrier, though.

“It’s a big transition, but everybody who plays in Europe has the same problem,’’ Johnson said.

Johnson said his coaches speak enough English to be understood, most of the time. One of his teammates, Tomasz Cielebak, is Polish but played college ball at Marist, which is in the same conference, the Metro Atlantic, as Rider, Johnson’s alma mater.

“He helps me out,’’ Johnson said. “We actually have a lot in common.’’

Johnson’s contract ends in May. He doesn’t know what comes next.

He does plan to run a basketball camp for kids at McCaskey this summer. He gets a break next week, and plans to bring his family home to Lancaster for a few days.

“I think I need it,’’ he said.

He spent a brief time with the Los Angeles Clippers summer-league team this year.

That didn’t work out, but did lead to Johnson parting ways with his agent, Keith Glass. Glass is Larry Brown’s agent, more of an NBA guy. The new agent, Michael Hart, currently has dozens of clients on European rosters.

Doesn’t mean Johnson has stopped dreaming.

“Do I still want to play in the NBA?’’ he asked. That would be a rhetorical question.

He mentioned Sarunas Jasikevicius, the former Solanco star who finally landed in the NBA this year via the University of Maryland and pro stints in Lithuania and Israel. Jasikevicius is getting regular minutes with the Indiana Pacers, a team that has a chance to play into June. He’s a 29-year-old rookie.

“The NBA isn’t going anywhere,’’ Johnson said. “I have time.’’
 
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