Hartland's Jason Gigliotti playing pro basketball in Iceland

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

It turned out basketball was his passport to global adventure.

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

Such opportunities were beyond his imagination after graduating from Hartland High School in 2017 and heading to the University of Michigan-Dearborn to play at the NAIA level.

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

Langley took preemptive measures to ensure Gigliotti wouldn’t 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 moment when I was still young. I was a sophomore. As a freshman, those were all the guys who started and played; they were the stars of the team. Them telling me how important I was to the team is what really made me stay.”

When he was recently hired as the 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’s probably going to quit. He’s into music. He’s a very good guitarist. He wanted to start a band and wanted to see the world.

“I remember sitting down with him and saying, ‘Jason, you’re 6-foot-9, 240 pounds and run like a dear. Stick with basketball; music is always going to be there. I convinced him to stay. Now he’s having a heck of a 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 playoff semifinals, averaging 20.8 points, 13.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks. He made the all-league first team.

His performance last winter earned him a contract with Grindavik of the Icelandic Subway League, the country’s top league.

“He’s a really intelligent basketball player who fits well with the European game,” Langley said. “I’ve watched him play on some live streams. He’s not just a good player, he’s a dominant player in his league. I don’t think he’s reached his ceiling yet. He still has more room to grow in the sport. I think he can have a very good career and do well for himself financially. When they play overseas, they’re not making millions, but enough to put a first downpayment on a house and pay off student loans. Those are things that can help get your life jump-started.”

When he was finished at UM-Dearborn, Gigliotti hired an agent who is based 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 kind of surprised,” he said. “I didn’t really know too much about it, other than 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 could check off my bucket list, especially having the opportunity to see the Northern Lights. Now there’s a volcano going on up there. Those are two things I always wanted to see in my life. In the end, it was a good choice.”

Gigliotti played in Iceland’s second-largest city last year, a town on the north end of the country with a population of 18,000. He will now be playing in a city on the southern end of the country, one which is near an active volcano.

Growing up in Michigan, Gigliotti was used to snow and cold temperatures. He wasn’t prepared for the short winter days living near the top of the world.

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

Communication wasn’t a barrier, like it was in Italy, because many people in Iceland speak English as a second language. While in Italy, he gave himself a crash course in Italian in order to communicate with coaches, teammates and in everyday life.

“I had planned a trip to Italy the summer that COVID started, so that got all thrown out the window,” said Langley, who turns 25 in September. “That was pretty much my first big trip out of the U.S. If you were to ask my family, they would say I was — maybe not scared — but I definitely didn’t really know what I was doing. So, there was a lot of learning in that process. In hindsight, it was tough, but it paid off, for sure.”

After a year in Italy, Gigliotti found a comfort level playing and living in a frozen isolated nation in the north Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s kind of weird to say, but last season I felt like I found a home,” he said. “That was a really big factor in me playing as well as I did. When you feel good, you play good.

“I 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 will be a lot easier.”

Before turning to Iceland on Sept. 4, Gigliotti is soaking up summer in Michigan as much as possible.

“Definitely the biggest thing I’ve been enjoying here is the weather,” he said.

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Hartland's Jason Gigliotti playing pro basketball in Iceland