YOUNGSTOWN
During her first two weeks in Sweden, Brandi Brown thought she was getting the cold shoulder from the natives.
By the end of her six-month stint, she was only getting cold.
In September, the former Youngstown State standout traveled 4,000 miles to begin her professional basketball career with the Solna Vikings of the Damligan, Sweden’s top women’s basketball league.
She immediately realized something — whether walking the streets of Stockholm or posting up on the basketball court, you don’t apologize for banging bodies.
“When you’re walking around [nearby] Stockholm, you bump shoulders with someone and, in the United States, when you accidentally bump someone, you turn around and say, ‘Excuse me, sorry,’” she said, smiling. “In Sweden, it’s not like that and I was so offended. I was like, ‘Why do these people bump into me and just keep walking?’
“But I realized it’s just a part of their culture. Culturally, I found they keep to themselves a little bit but once you get to know them, they’re great people. I think for the first two weeks, I felt like everybody was really rude, but I got used to it and bumped some shoulders myself sometimes.”
Brown, the 2013 Horizon League player of the year, was one of two Americans on the team, along with former Ohio State standout Amber Stokes. While the pair played well — Brown finished second to Stokes in scoring with 17 points per game while posting team-highs in rebounds (14.2 per game) and minutes (35.6) — the rest of the team struggled, going 4-14 to finish ninth in the 10-team league.
“It was a little different coming off an awesome senior season and then going back to another tough year,” said Brown, who went winless as a YSU freshman before leading the Penguins to the second round of the WNIT last season. “It was a tough season.”
Solna’s roster ranged in age from 16-24 — “We were very young,” Brown said — and she said the competition was a little below the Horizon League.
“[Amber and I] were coming off college, where everybody is very competitive and everybody wants to win and doing things right,” Brown said. “So it was definitely a different culture, on the basketball court as well as socially.”
Since Swedes start learning English in grade school, the language barrier wasn’t an issue. (Her teammates did try to teach her the swear words, “but their curse words don’t even sound like curse words,” she said, laughing. “I couldn’t even imagine saying them. It’s just a bunch of letters together.”)
She enjoyed the food which was heavy on vegetables and fish. (Alas, Brown said, they don’t actually sell Swedish Fish candy over there.) But she got tired of taking the Metro during the notoriously cold winters.
“I was like, ‘I need a car,’” she said, laughing.
Brown’s favorite part of the trip was spiritual, not physical. She got plugged into a great church “and I really got to see my faith grow,” she said. “I felt like I grew up a little bit, too.”
Brown was back at YSU on Saturday to watch the Penguins’ regular-season finale against Cleveland State. She said she watched as many games as she could online — “I was so excited to hear about them beating Green Bay twice and I couldn’t be more proud of the season they’ve had so far,” she said — and will be in Ohio for a few more weeks before returning to her native Los Angeles.
After that, she’s heading out to Australia to play basketball.
“I’m really excited about that,” she said. “It’s going to be warmer.”
