Golden State’s 24-game win streak snapped in Milwaukee,
Argentine star adores family, experiencing new cultures and working his cattle farm
It is his inquisitive nature that makes Luis Scola unique, his appreciation for the larger world and his place in it, his hobbies and devotion to a large and close family, his willingness to take career risks and make the most of them.
The Raptors power forward is a bit of a basketball outlier, and the balance he strikes between life and profession makes him better at both.
He is a gentleman farmer — to a degree — and a doting father of four. He loves to explore new cities and countries and cultures, to make sure he and his family get as much out of the experience as possible, he’s a workout demon and a well-respected teammate, an Argentine by birth and a devoted patriot but also a man wise enough to realize contentment comes from within, not from outside creature comforts.
He might not be The Most Interesting Man In The World but of all the players who’ve come and gone through Toronto over the years, he’d rank high on the list of The Most Intriguing Raptors Of All Time.
“You want to put the majority of your time on basketball because that is what we do, that’s who we are and playing at such a high level like the NBA, we have to be up-to-date on everything,” he said. “We spend a lot of the day, especially during the season a lot of our time goes into it and that’s the right thing to do.
“But there’s still some time left that you can use wisely, keeping in mind to always work around basketball . . . but there’s a lot of things you can do.” Like be a cowboy. The 35-year-old owns a farm in his native Buenos Aires, an 850-acre,140 head-of-cattle operation.
“We just breed the cows and sell them. Someone else makes them fat and then somebody else makes them beef,” he says.
The farm affords him some relaxation each summer. It may be counter-productive to the industry but he has a blast hanging around.
“If I want to have fun I grab a horse and go work the farm but I really don’t know much of what I’m doing so I bother people, the guys who are actually working,” he said. “I am making their jobs slower and sometimes I do it but a lot of time maybe I look like I work but I watch and have fun.”
Fun is at the heart of almost everything Scola does. He’s a regular at his children’s basketball games, he marveled at the breadth of Canada and took in the beauty of Vancouver during training camp. He and his wife spent an off-day in Montreal after an exhibition game exploring the city’s charms and he and his family will take weekend car excursions between the end of the season and the end of the school year.
“You get to know different people, speak different languages, you get to know a new country, the history, the culture, a new city,” he said at that time. “You get to know a lot of new places, exciting places. It is a good thing, it has some challenge, some bad things in it, but it is a good thing.”
He has a found a way to balance a large and active family with a timeconsuming profession for an enviably well-rounded life because he sees that balance and those experiences as vital to professional success and a lifestyle that will benefit his children greatly. It’s not easy raising four children under the age of 11 and devoting the time necessary to an NBA career, but Scola knows how vital it is to everyone.
“You get used to organizing the time, to give them as much time as you can, especially quality time while you’re trying to take care of your profession. It’s a little bit harder sometimes but I believe emotionally and mentally it gives you a boost, I actually believe that it’s a good thing.
“I believe that all the teams should try to involve family as much as they can and the NBA does a great job of that. It creates a good feeling and I think it helps. This job is different, guys are young and most of them, they don’t have kids but there are some exceptions, some teams have a lot of kids and I think the more you do with the family, the more you identify with the team and your family does, too, the more it is better, the harder you work, the harder you try.”
Trying is something Scola does more than anything else.
He tries to balance his life, work at his craft and fit everything in. He knows he’s far closer to the end of his career than the start. That drives him in his ninth season in the NBA and will at play in his fourth Olympics with Argentina next summer. His workout prowess is legendary — “he’s a Super Pro, always working,” Argentine teammate Manu Ginobili said this week.
“I believe you have to be able to work out every day — sometimes it’s hard, it’s a day off and it’s a Sunday and the kids want to do something fun. When it’s a practice day, it’s a practice day and they determine the time but on all the days off, if it’s a weekday you have the whole morning because the kids are in school; if it’s the weekend, that’s a little bit more of a problem but I just try to find a way to make it work.”
Scola cannot be sure what the future holds but he does know he will welcome the experiences it brings. He’s learned to relish everything life has presented to him so far. Maybe he’ll do more to not be a disruptive farmhand, maybe he’ll find somewhere else to explore.
“I believe you gain a lot from the other places that you’ve been. I feel a little bit at home in everywhere I’ve been but there’s only one home at the end of the day,” he said.
“It’s my country, it’s where my culture, it’s where my family is, my friends, where I grew up. It’s the place in the world where I feel at home.”