Lila Banaszak is a 26-year-old and 6-foot-1 forward who plays for the Polish national team and Flammes Carolo Basket in France. She’s also played professionally in Egypt and Spain.
Naturally strong, Lila is capable of playing multiple positions, demonstrating a willingness to do whatever is necessary for her team to win.
Banaszak recently spoke to Swish Appeal about being a pro, traveling and switching teams while having a dog, playing against adults while still in high school and maybe one day joining
the WNBA. Here are a few highlight from our conversation:
On attending the Polish Basketball Federation academy:
I think the school is not that popular now. People have had their own ways to be successful and build careers, but in my day that was the only basketball school we had. It was ran by the national federation and had good coaches, who could spend time with you on individual skills.
For me, being from a small city, there was no other way to get better than going to this kind of school and, to be honest, I never expected that I’d be going there because I didn’t even know about it. Basketball was never a thing for me until they invited me. When they sent a [recruitment] letter to my family, I was on the national under-15 team.
We woke up before 7 a.m., had breakfast and at 7:15 a.m. we already had some classes. Then we had practice, then lunch, then classes and then practice. From 7 a.m. till 8, sometimes 9 p.m., we were working, [constantly] doing stuff. In some evenings you had maybe one, two hours to study or take care of yourself, and that was it.
On playing professionally in Egypt:
There were not a lot of fans in attendance, but our games were on public TV and I know that a lot of people were watching our games. It was thousands of people. I think it’s about the culture. They don’t have much money to attend games, so people don’t come to the arenas but they watch them on TV.
This allows [women’s basketball] to be everywhere. The level of basketball is hard to describe because when you go there. There’s no organization, there’s nothing. But at the same time, those girls know how to play basketball.
A special thank you to Tomasz Matyskiewicz of SPORTFORUM Agency for arranging the interview.
