By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Topekan Peyton Williams is headed overseas for her fifth season of professional basketball, this time to China.
The product of Cair Paravel Latin and Kansas State University is now a veteran of four professional seasons. She played in Russia upon graduation, then spent a season in France and two in Hungary.
Former Cair Paravel and Kansas State star Peyton Williams is getting ready for her fifth professional basketball season and her first in China. [Submitted photo]
Williams will play this season for the Wuhan Shengfan Basketball Club.
“My agent and I talked about Spain, Turkey and China, all of which have really good leagues. Because China is a little bit farther away, he wanted to make sure I was actually interested in that. I said, ‘Let’s give it a try,’ '' Williams said. "He was able to connect with some people and help me find a team.”
An anthropology major at K-State, Williams is looking forward to the opportunity to experience a different part of the world.
“I have really enjoyed playing in the Europe circuit. But I’ve never been to China and have been really interested in the culture, as well as to see what basketball is like there.” Williams said. “I know that they have a really competitive league. So, it’s a chance to push myself as a professional and also to experience a different culture.”
Williams said the Chinese league, made up of 21 teams, covers such a large geographic area that the league is split into divisions. She said unlike Europe, where most of the travel was done in vans or on commuter trains, the team in China will travel primarily by airplane or on the country’s “bullet trains.”
“It will be somewhat similar to what we did in Russia,” Williams said. “There, almost all our travel was by plane, and sometimes those flights were across four or five time zones.”
Williams said the level of play she has experienced thus far in her career would be a step up from what she saw in the Big 12. She noted that a lot of the best players from the Big 12 have been among her opponents in Europe. She expects the Chinese league to be as challenging as anywhere she’s played, if not more so.
“I think every league that I’ve played in has had a lot of talent, but I’ve heard the Chinese league is really good because it attracts a lot of really good players from the U.S.,” Williams said.
Typically, Williams has joined her teams in August or September, but the Chinese league begins a bit later and has a slightly shorter season than the European leagues. She made the most of the offseason by doing an internship at the Kansas State Historical Society, playing in some amateur volleyball tournaments and recording a podcast, The Eurostep.
She also got to attend the Kansas State women’s basketball exhibition game against Washburn last week. It was the first time she had entered Bramlage Coliseum since the final home game of her senior season, a campaign cut short by the pandemic.
Now, coincidentally, Williams will play for a team based in the city where the pandemic began.
“That’s been an interesting thing to tell people,” Williams said. “Of course, they have some funny things to say about that. You know, four years ago, pretty much no one in the U.S. had ever heard of Wuhan.”
Williams admits a degree of nervousness accompanies each season in a new location.
“Honestly, the biggest thing is, ‘What do I pack?’” Williams said. “The first thing on your mind is a very practical one. But then it’s, ‘What kind of situation will I be walking into?’ Whether the coach speaks English determines a lot of the experience. That has been a real hurdle for me in the past, but as I’ve grown, I’ve learned how to deal with the language difference.”
After four seasons overseas, Williams relishes the opportunities she’s been given.
“Ghandi said, ‘Travel is the language of peace,’ ” Williams said. “I really love that, because professional basketball has put me in so many different places and around so many different people. It challenges me as a player and as a person.”
