This Sunday, the former Olympiakos Piraeus player Louis Karkabasis will be inducted to the Hall of Fame of his hometown Lindsay. Karkabasis played for the Reds from 1987-1992 and also for Sporting in the years 1992 to 1994.
Maybe it is not the basketball hall of fame, but this story took my attention when I read the article published on the local HP from the hometown of Karkabasis. After a successful college career with an Ontario championship with York University, Louis was scouted and recruited in 1987 by Olympiakos.
“I was like blown away, basketball in Greece? Come on, I was quick, I had a pretty good vertical jump and I played good defense. That was my attribute, I could play really, really good defense,” was his reaction when he got the announcement to move to the home country of his parents. “We represented the city of Pireaus. We played in front of 10,000 people and fans would follow you to the next city. Not only is it more competition at a higher level, there’s also ten times more pressure on us to win because people live and die by their teams.”
Louis stayed several year with Olympiakos and also won a Greek title in 1991. He finished his career in Greece with Sporting in 1994 after another contract dispute, a problem which was also at the origin of his release from Piraeus.
But his stay in Europe was also at the source of his second professional career. He became a certified sommelier and he also created an importing business with a portfolio of mostly Greek and Italian wines. Now, at the age of 42 he moved back to his hometown and will be inducted into the Lindsay and District Sports Hall of Fame as the most accomplished basketball player to ever come from the area.
Leave a Reply