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Hartland’s Jason Gigliotti plays professional basketball in Iceland

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HARTLAND — Jason Gigliotti thought a guitar was his ticket to travel the world.

It turned out that basketball was his passport to a worldwide adventure.

Gigliotti is preparing for his second season as a professional basketball player in Iceland, moving up to the country’s top league after playing a year in Italy.

Such opportunities exceeded his imagination after he graduated from Hartland High School in 2017 and headed to the University of Michigan-Dearborn to play at the NAIA level.

In fact, he nearly gave up the sport before his sophomore year of college. The demands of working toward an engineering degree, plus a desire to get into music, led Gigliotti to request an exit interview with coach Taylor Langley.

Langley took precautions to ensure Gigliotti would not leave the team.

“When I texted him, I decided I was done,” Gigliotti said. “He had the meeting and brought in all the captains. That was a time when I was young. I was a sophomore. As a freshman, those were all the guys that started and played; they were the stars of the team. For them to tell me how important I was to the team is what really made me stay.”

When he was recently hired as head coach at Brighton High School, Langley recalled that meeting.

“He’s one of my all-time favorites,” Langley said. “He came to me as a sophomore and said he was probably going to quit. He loves music. He’s a really good guitar player. He wanted to start a band and see the world.

“I remember sitting down with him and saying, ‘Jason, you’re 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, and you run like a pro. Stick with basketball; music will always be there. I convinced him to stay. Now he’s having a great career overseas. I’m so proud of him.’

After a season in Italy, Gigliotti played for Thor Akureyri in Iceland’s Division 1. He helped his team reach the semifinals of the playoffs, averaging 20.8 points, 13.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks. He made the All-League first team.

His performances last winter earned him a contract with Grindavik, a club from the Icelandic Subway League, the country’s top competition.

“He’s a very intelligent basketball player who fits well into the European game,” Langley said. “I’ve seen him play on a number of live streams. He’s not only a good player, he’s a dominant player in his league. I don’t think he’s reached his ceiling yet. He still has room to grow in the game. I think he can have a very good career and do well financially. When they play overseas, they don’t make millions, but they make enough to put a down payment on a house and pay off student loans. Those are things that can really change your life.”

When he finished at UM-Dearborn, Gigliotti hired an agent who lived in Italy, which was his “in” to play in that country. After that season, his agent found an opportunity in one of the last places on earth Gigliotti expected to visit, let alone play basketball.

“When he first said ‘Iceland,’ I was a little surprised,” he said. “I didn’t really know much about it, other than that people go there to travel and see the beautiful nature that’s there.

“Iceland is an amazing country, absolutely beautiful. It was one of the things I was able to cross off my bucket list, especially the chance to see the Northern Lights. Now there’s a volcano there. Those are two things I’ve always wanted to see in my life. In the end it was a good choice.”

Gigliotti played last year in Iceland’s second-largest city, a city on the northern coast of the country with a population of 18,000. He will now play in a city on the southern coast of the country, a city that is located near an active volcano.

Growing up in Michigan, Gigliotti was used to snow and cold temperatures, but he was unprepared for the short winter days he spent near the top of the world.

“The biggest adjustment for me was in the winter,” he said. “In Iceland, there’s maybe three hours of daylight because it’s so far north. In the summer, it’s just daylight. That was the biggest adjustment for me, waking up in the morning and it’s pitch black until 10:00 or 10:30. It’s hard to get on that schedule.”

Communication was not a barrier, as it was in Italy, because many people in Iceland speak English as a second language. During his stay in Italy, he gave himself a crash course in Italian to be able to communicate with coaches, teammates and in everyday life.

“I had a trip planned to Italy the summer that COVID started, so all of that went out the window,” said Langley, who turns 25 in September. “That was actually my first big trip outside of the U.S. If you asked my family, they would say I was — maybe not scared — but I definitely didn’t know what I was doing. So there was a lot to learn in that process. In retrospect, it was tough, but it definitely paid off.”

After a year in Italy, Gigliotti found his feet in a frozen, isolated country in the North Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s a bit strange to say, but last season I felt like I had found a home,” he said. “That was a huge factor in me playing so well. When you feel good, you play well.

“I’ve made a lot of friends. I’ll have some when I go back now. I’m going to a new team, so you don’t know exactly what it’s going to be like. Now I have some friends who are there, so it’ll be a lot easier.”

Before Gigliotti leaves for Iceland on September 4, he is enjoying the summer in Michigan as much as possible.

“The best thing I like most here is the weather,” he said.

Contact Bill Khan at [email protected]. Follow him on X @BillKhan

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