After the Oregon basketball season ended with a loss to Mississippi State in the NCAA Tournament, Oregon’s five seniors – Malik Hairston, Maarty Leunen, Mitch Platt, Ray Schafer and Bryce Taylor – each went their own way to try to continue their basketball careers. While Hairston, Leunen and Taylor are hoping to be taken in the June 26 NBA Draft, Schafer was the first of the group to sign a professional contract.
The Shiga Lakestars, an expansion team in Japan’s Basketball Japan League, coached by Oregon-native Robert Pierce, recently signed Schafer. The league, which was founded in 2005 with six teams and has since expanded to 12, has a 52-game schedule that starts in mid-October. He left yesterday for Japan.
Schafer and his wife Sarah, neither of whom have been to Japan before, sat down with the Emerald last week to talk about his post-college life.
Oregon Daily Emerald: What have you been up to since basketball season ended?
Ray Schafer: I had that last bus ride to the Cas Center with my teammates from the airport (after getting back from the NCAA Tournament) and that was it. I cleaned out my locker and have just been working out in town. (Sarah) coached track at Churchill and the athletic department there was very open and let me practice at the gym, shoot around and I’d be able to lift there as well.
ODE: How did you find out about the Japanese league?
Ray: My friend Bruce O’Neil was really impressed with us and wanted to help us out, so he got us a connection with his friend, Coach Pierce, who is the coach of the Japanese team. He arranged a workout and Robert Pierce came down Monday (just after spring break), before he was going to fly out the next Thursday, I believe it was. He came down and shot around, did some drills he wanted me to do and he was very impressed. He offered me (a contract) the next day.
ODE: What do you (Sarah) think about the idea of going to Japan?
Sarah: I’m excited. It’s an opportunity to be able to travel and be with your best friend. Of any time in our lives, I think this offers a lot of new things. We have no idea what to expect, especially in Japan, because it’s such a different country, but it’s great. We’re both thrilled.
ODE: What would you be doing if you weren’t going to Japan?
Ray: The usual routine. The other seniors, they got accepted to a tryout in Florida (the NBA Pre-Draft Camp), so that’s what usually happens. I believe Mitch is going to be doing it too, he’s not at that camp, but he’ll be doing camps maybe in Vegas. I haven’t talked with him about it, but typically what you do after your senior year is you work out, you try out and see what your options are and come fall, somebody signs you and you go play.
ODE: Do you know of any other U.S. college players playing in Japan?
Ray: We were looking at the league’s roster and there are a couple guys that I know. Nick DeWitz, he played up at OSU, he’s in the league (with the Sendai 89ers). I also saw some guys from ASU that I recognized their faces.
ODE: How long do you plan on staying there to play?
Ray: Usually you get a six-month contract, like I said, you work out all summer, go to camps and get signed and then do six to seven, if you get playoffs. But ’cause it’s a new team, it’s a special situation where they would like us to come down early to help promote the team, do camps and be there for tryouts and whatnot, so this an 11-month contract. I’m very fortunate to get it, it doesn’t come around very often so it’s quite a blessing.
ODE: Do you want to stick around to play a second season?
Ray: (The first year) was a win-win for us. Either we’d have to get jobs all summer and continue working out, pay for our living or go over there, start getting paid, work out and start our career and be situated for when the season comes. We’ll be comfortable in the community by then, so it’s definitely a win-win, but I don’t know that I’d do that in the future. It’s a half-year business, but it’s a full-year commitment, you’re always working out. I think we’d enjoy our summers from here on out to come back to the States and visit family and be with friends.
ODE: Have you been studying up on Japan?
Ray: We have. She’s been the real student of it. I’m really looking to just sink or swim there and learn it that way, but she’s been looking it up in books and learning about the culture.
ODE: How quickly do you think you’ll be able to pick up Japanese?
Sarah: Maybe a few phrases here and there. The coaches were telling us there’s some phrases it’s just good to know. We’ll hopefully be able to pronounce those well and understand it, but it’s a tough language.
Ray: Yeah, Coach said you need to know ‘thank you,’ ‘please,’ ‘nice to meet you,’ and ‘I’m hungry.’ (Laughs)
ODE: Is English the language you’ll be using for basketball then?
Ray: It will be. The coach is from Portland, Robert Pierce, he will have a translator for the Japanese guys. We just got the first-round number one pick in the draft (Sarah: From Korea), a 6-7 player and we did really well in the draft, I guess. We got all four guys that we wanted.
ODE: Did you have any problems with the visa? I know Frantz Dorsainvil had some problems coming into the U.S., but did you have any with Japan?
Ray: I never figured out why it took so long for Frantz to get down here, but I guess it’s different with this. It took time, but there were no real problems. It was just a matter of them sending me it, we’d sign it, send it back and they get it drawn up, send it, we went to the embassy (Wednesday). Crazy day, we drove all the way up to Portland to the Wells Fargo Building and went to the Japanese Embassy there and got it all set up.
ODE: Is that a relief to get it all taken care of?
Ray: Oh yeah, it’s a weight off our shoulders.
ODE: Did your Japanese team take care of most of the arrangements?
Ray: They were very helpful in the whole process. Motofumi Iguchi, he was more than helpful. He’s put together everything. It’s his first time doing a lot of this, but he had it all organized. All I had to do, I’d give it to him, he’d run it over and do all the foot work for me, so he was very helpful. We met him (Wednesday) for the first time. Very nice gentleman.
ODE: Do you think you’ll be able to be successful playing in the Japanese league?
Ray: Yes, Lord willing. I’m very excited about it and I’m looking forward to that. The one thing we really had a question on was whether or not I’d be able to fit into the apartment. We were totally ready to adapt to anything and if the ceilings were lower than 7-foot, I figured I’d just have a wheelchair and just maneuver around my apartment in a wheelchair. I’m really, really excited and able to make anything work.
ODE: So the apartment does fit you then?
Ray: Yeah, we talked to the coach yesterday. (Sarah: It’s American-built.) The doorways, that’s pretty standard, you always have to duck under that, but the apartment is definitely tall (enough).
ODE: (To Sarah) Are you going to have a job there?
Sarah: We’re working on a working visa, but I’m just going over there as his dependent, as his wife. We’re hoping that I can teach English or have an opportunity like that, but there’s also a lot of people around the area and I may find myself in a number of things. We’re playing a lot by ear. A lot of it is layed out for us as we go over there and then a lot of it is unknown, so we’re good to just go with the flow and see what happens.
ODE: Is the salary enough to live on then, or is the team providing most what you need?
Ray: The contract takes care of two bicycles – usually you get cars, but down there you wouldn’t want a car – so two bicycles, the apartment’s furnished and transportation, everything’s taken care of, so the only thing we’ll have as an expense pretty much is food.
Sarah: They were talking about how the culture is very, even more so than here, sports-oriented, so they love it. They’ll see Ray im
mediately as one of those sports people. Even though he’s known for basketball here, there he’ll be seen as a ghost, almost, so it’s very interesting to see that difference of the culture.
Ray: As far as the contract goes, it’s very satisfying for a first year, but it’s not something you’d want to stay with, you’d definitely want to work up. We’re pleased with the opportunity we were able to get, coming off a senior year like I did with, I don’t remember the minutes, probably 18 over the whole year, but coming off something like that and then having me be the first signee on the team and just the coach showing confidence in you like that and saying, ‘we trust in you and we think you’re it,’ so that meant a lot, that they had faith in me to show that initial investment. It’s huge over there and we’re getting that idea, how really big this is.
ODE: What are you going to miss most about the U.S.?
Ray: Community. I don’t know… I’m sure we’ll figure it out when we get there but I know I’ll definitely miss the college life. It’s been a fun five years. A very supportive student group, I love the Pit Crew, but for us it’s going to be community.
Sarah: Our friends, I think. Just being in a new culture, you kind of have to pick and choose because there’s very few people that speak English, so I’m sure it’s going to bring us closer. We know that the area we’re going is a lot like this, a lot like Eugene, with trees and the water. That’s a great things because neither of us really want to be stuck directly into a city.
ODE: What do you plan on doing once your basketball career is over?
Ray: That’s up in the air still. I love aviation, always had a passion for aviation. Maybe do ministry work. Well, our whole life is a ministry, we definitely live it. We don’t want to be the kind to go out and just talk it, so wherever we are, we’re trying to be an example of Christ. Coming back, I have no idea what it looks like, but I love woodworking, love airplanes. I’m very open and very excited about the future.
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