Treviso, Italy: Spencer Nelson ’04 likes to talk about “Welcome to Europe” moments – those times that typify the often surreal circumstances of playing professional basketball on the Continent. There was the game last year in France, for instance, in which his team from Bamberg, Germany, couldn’t finish its layup lines at the end of halftime. A Vegas-style lounge singer and dancing girls, offered by the home team as entertainment, were in the way.

Then there was the game that Nelson’s current team, Benetton Treviso, played in late January against an Italian league rival, Eldo Napoli. The home team needed to win to advance to the next round of the European playoffs and led by 15 points at one juncture. But led by Nelson, Benetton rallied in the second half and won a tight game in the final seconds when Nelson drove to the basket, drew a couple of defenders and then kicked the ball out to a wide-open teammate for a three-point basket.

Angry fans threw soda bottles onto the court, and Napoli’s owner, no doubt aware that his team had lost the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of Euros by not advancing, stormed into the Benetton locker room and berated the surprised visiting players for having the temerity to win. When the Benetton bus finally pulled out of the parking lot, after riot police had been called in and things had supposedly calmed down, Napoli supporters pelted it with rocks.

“There are a lot of times,” Nelson says with a laugh, “when you look around and say to yourself, ‘This is not normal.’”

“Normal,” though, has also meant that for the past two years, Spencer Nelson has been able to play the sport that he loves for good money at the highest level of Europe. It has meant that the kid from Pocatello, Idaho, who had never been out of the country after graduating from Utah State has visited most of the countries on the Continent. This season, he and his wife Julie Clayton Nelson ’04Att have been able to travel through much of Italy from their base in Treviso, in the northern part of the country. Venice is but a half-hour away by train – “an awesome day trip,” he says.

This season, Nelson has experienced both the highs and lows of playing ball in Europe. Playing for one of the storied teams in Europe, Benetton Treviso (its alumni include Toni Kukoc and this season’s top pick in the NBA draft, Andrea Bargnani), Nelson, as a key reserve, has put up solid numbers – about 9 points a game in both European and Italian competition by the end of March. Benetton won an important midseason Italian league tournament and Nelson, with 14 points and 13 rebounds in the final, was voted most valuable player.

 “Spencer sort of signifies our team,” Benetton’s American-born coach, David Blatt, said. “He’s fundamentally sound and team-oriented. We’re not a star-based team. We just kind of play together and hope the whole is greater than the parts.”

In March, though, Benetton suffered two significant setbacks. First, it was eliminated in Euroleague competition by losing in overtime at Dynamo Moscow. Then the team was penalized in the Italian league standings for having too many players on the roster. A top-three finish in the league had looked likely; now Benetton would have to win practically every game to make the playoffs.

“That’s the part of playing in Europe that people sometimes don’t focus on,” Nelson acknowledges. “The expectations are great, especially if you are an American player. This season has had a lot of ups and downs for me personally and for the team, but now we just have to play through it.”

Spend 10 minutes with Spencer Nelson and you can’t help be struck by his upbeat attitude. In an interview at Benetton's sports complex in late January, he’s friendly and outgoing, and projects a heartfelt optimism even when none seems warranted. Who else could call missing a season at Utah State because of a torn knee ligament – as Nelson did in 2001-2002 – “really the best thing for me, because it allowed me to get stronger and to work on my game”? He also doesn’t sound bitter or regretful about being cut by the NBA’s Utah Jazz in the fall of 2005; “just to get that close was a huge blessing.” Many American players in Europe will complain about the food or language barriers or the travel, but Nelson seems to shrug off the various inconveniences and enjoy the moment. No wonder his Utah State teammates voted him “most inspirational player” three years in a row.

Utah State Coach Stew Morrill says he’s not at all surprised that Nelson has fit in so well in Europe. “When he was done playing, I made the comment that Spencer would always be one of my all-time favorites because of his mental makeup and his development as a player and his leadership abilities,” Morrill says. “He’s a very unique guy. He’s blessed with great motivation and a personality that attracts others. He’s just a special player, a special person.”

Nelson, for his part, says he has “nothing but good feelings about Utah State. I don’t think I could have had a better college experience. Basketball-wise, the teammates and the coaches I had were great. College was so much fun because without the money, there’s a purity to the game when you really are playing for each other and for Utah State. In the professional game, you’re always jumping places – last year I was in Germany, and this year it’s Italy and next year I could be someplace else. There’s money and contract, and you really have to define who you are in playing the game. But on campus, every day you would see you were representing Utah State.”
When Nelson landed a job with the German team after being cut by the Jazz, “I don’t think I really knew what to expect. I knew it would be a great experience as far as learning cultures, languages and meeting so many types of people. And that’s been true, both in Germany and in Italy. Julie and I are both learning Italian, although Julie speaks it a whole lot better than I do.”

As for the basketball, Nelson found the European game “really a lot more like the college game than the NBA. But you’ve got these NBA-size guys playing, so it’s really, really physical. And because of my size [a slender 6 feet 8 inches], I get the crap knocked out of me. At first I would try to post up and bang with the guy guys, but I learned. Now when I get the ball, I’ll take the defender outside and try to use my quickness on a drive.”

With its emphasis on passing, moving without the ball and team play, European basketball is the ideal venue for Nelson. Making the NBA is still a dream, but not one that possesses him; he seems oriented for now toward the Continent. “I picture doing this for four or five more years. I’m 26 now. When I’m 30, I’ll reevaluate where I am,” he says. “As long as I feel my career can move forward and I’m progressing as a basketball player, I’ll want to keep doing this. But the moment I think I should be somewhere else – and I should say what we feel, since my wife is a part of this – then it’s time to sit down and figure out the next step.”

That could mean moving back to Logan – “it’s a great college town. My wife and I talk about moving back and settling there when I finish playing.” Nelson has a fallback: He is a semester away from getting his MBA after earning a degree in accounting and finance, and he spent a summer on Wall Street as an intern.
 “Right now, though, I’m concentrating on basketball,” Nelson says. There are still a lot of Welcome to Europe moments to be experienced. —Tim Warren