Aug. 7, 2006
Bowling Green, Ohio -
In Their Words is a weekly feature appearing Sundays in The Blade's sports section. Blade sports writer Maureen Fulton talked with Len Matela, a former Bowling Green State University basketball standout who is playing for the Antwerp Giants in Belgium.
Len Matela was a team leader and a key cog during one of the best stretches in Bowling Green State University basketball history.
The school's ninth all-time leading scorer with 1,527 points, Matela played for BGSU from 1998-2002. He was part of a group that had the best four-year record in 52 years, a 79-40 mark. He was a two-year captain for the Falcons as a post player, and his teams played in the NIT twice.
Matela was named second-team All-MAC his senior year after averaging 16 points and eight rebounds. He received a conference honorable mention his junior year.
He is one of only two players to finish in the BGSU top 10 rankings in scoring and rebounding. His 58 percent career field goal percentage was the third-best in school history. He finished his career 20th in the MAC in career rebounds with 890.
Matela, 26 years old from Merrillville, Ind., has played professional basketball in Europe for four years. After college, Matela, 6-foot-9, 240 pounds, started out playing for a team in Weissenfels, Germany.
After a year, he moved to the top division in Belgium to play for the Antwerp Giants, where he has played the past three years. He averaged 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds for Antwerp and has re-signed for a fourth season.
Matela recently gave a financial gift to the BGSU basketball program to help with summer school scholarships for players. Matela and his wife, Tiffany, a BGSU graduate, live in Chicago in the off-season.
"THE FOUR YEARS I was in Bowling Green were really good. Socially, we all had a lot of friends, we all knew a lot of people, we all had fun at parties. Not too much fun, but we were able to go out. We had great guys, we're all still friends. We were having fun. You could tell in the way we played. We played good basketball."
"EUROPEAN BASKETBALL is a different style. At BG I was heavier and a lot stronger. Now I'm a little bit slimmer, and I've got more range to shoot from the perimeter or go inside-outside if I'm playing the five position. If it's a big guy, I can take him out and go one on one. If it's an undersized guy, then I can take him into the post."
"OUR TEAM'S KIND of a mid-level team, but we do pretty well for what we've got. We expect to win every game. If sometimes we face a team with a higher payroll, it's just like, we can do this. If a team has a $10 million payroll, we still try to win."
"I FEEL LIKE I get better every year. For the first time there I have a really good coach, Arik Shivek. He works with the players, he's got good systems, a good way about it. I've had one season under him. Over there sometimes you've got coaches who are just there. They just go with the talent they've got. If they have good talent, the team's good, if they have bad talent, they don't win much."
"I WAS TALKING to Coach [Dan Dakich] a few months ago, and I said, 'I can give something,' some money to the program. I benefited from the summers when I was here. For me, the best times in college were the summers. Campus isn't full, we're still working out and having fun. It's not as grueling as it is during the season, but we're still working out, we're still doing things. You can get to know people. I think it will help a little bit."
"I HAVEN'T TOUCHED a ball since I got home for the summer. It's a long, grueling season. We go twice a day every day. I leave August 15, and I'm overseas until about June 1. I came back early because we just missed the playoffs. So once I'm done, I do absolutely nothing for two weeks. When I do, I just lift and run a little bit so I don't get too out of shape. I got married last summer, and we just bought a condo in downtown Chicago. It's nice to have our own place because we just kind of bounce around."
Contact Maureen Fulton at: mfulton@theblade.com or 419-724-6160.
