Butler high basketballer to hoop in Netherlands
Tyler Frederick soon will play small forward on a basketball team, the first time he will take on the position in his 11-year career in the sport.
This change in position is small compared to another change he will undergo Aug. 12, when he will travel to the city of Weert in the Netherlands to join the Bal Academy basketball team, fulfilling a dream he has had since he started playing the sport.
Even so, he said he may be more concerned about the position change than the move.
“I’m nervous because I have never been this far away from home,” Frederick, 23, said. “It’ll be my first time playing three ... Practice has been getting me to shoot in different ways and play in places I’m not used to shooting from.”
Frederick lives in Butler, graduated from Butler Area Senior High School in 2017, attended La Roche College and then Slippery Rock University, where he also played basketball.
He will go from the Pittsburgh International Airport to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Aug. 11. From there, a plane will take Frederick to Amsterdam, where he can finally catch a train to the Netherlands, where he will have an apartment and bicycle waiting for him. His longest previous trip also was for basketball; a tournament in Las Vegas when he was 16 years old.
The next day he will begin practicing with the team. Frederick will play in the BNXT League, which is a newer league that operates in the Netherlands and Belgium and takes players younger than 25.
Frederick said he will be one of the older players on the team and one of only a few Americans. Nevertheless, his excitement for the experience outweighs any apprehension he has about traveling internationally.
“I’ve always wanted to travel overseas, see what it’s like being in another culture,” he said. “I think the difference in language will be the hardest part. My brother got me a Dutch dictionary, so that’ll come in handy.”
Landing a professional sports gig in a European country happened faster than Frederick expected. He told his agent he would like to play basketball in another country and had interviews with a few other European teams during the summer, but got a call back from the Bal Academy team just hours after completing an interview in June.
Frederick will play with the team on a one-year contract. He said he hopes to do well enough to continue playing with the team or move on to a higher league in the Netherlands or another country. The future is all open to him as of now, he said.
Although he is confident in his basketball skills, Frederick said he is not sure how different it will be to play in another league in another country. He said he heard there is more emphasis on the crossover in U.S. basketball, and calls on traveling may be stricter in the Netherlands.
Frederick said he is energetic about the move — an attitude that he has always played with on the court. Frederick started playing in seventh grade, which is late compared to other players, so he brought a high level of energy to the court to make up for the different skill level.
“When I first started, I was not skilled at all,” Frederick said. “The only thing I could do was run as fast as I could, jump as high as I could and let that carry my game.”
Some of Frederick’s coaches said this energy also sets him apart on the court and off.
Ian Grady, head coach of Slippery Rock University’s men’s basketball team, said Frederick displayed a lot of energy since his first day with the team.
“He is very skilled and talented, but his motor is really what separates him from other players at the same level,” Grady said. “He practices hard every day, and it sounds cliche, but you play how you practice.”
Grady also said Frederick made his dream of playing basketball internationally clear from the get-go, which earned support from his coaches and teammates. According to Grady, SRU has had a number of players recruited to leagues overseas, and many have found success in the global basketball market.
“Tyler is a great player and even a better person,” he said. “He had no off-the-court issues, he is a great representation of SRU, and he will continue to represent his teams well. He's a good young man, his future is very bright.”
Frederick has been spending his last summer stateside like he would any other, working, doing schoolwork and staying in shape. He anticipates that he actually will have more free time in the Netherlands, despite being there to play basketball.
On Tuesday, he stopped at one of his home courts at Butler’s Rotary Park, where he ran into some old acquaintances he used to play with.
While he is also looking forward to trying to food in the European nation, Frederick said the most gratifying aspect of the move is that he will get to experience another part of the world while playing a sport a tattoo on his leg refers to as “more than a game.”
“It’s always been my dream to travel, so what better way to do that than by playing basketball,” Frederick said.
