Give & Go With Olaf Schaftenaar
The Oregon State men’s basketball team opens its regular season on Friday, Nov. 14 against Rice at 7 p.m. at Gill Coliseum. To help preview the 114th season in Oregon State basketball history, and the first under head coach Wayne Tinkle, we sat down with several players on the team to get to know them better.
Next up is Olaf Schaftenaar, a 6-foot-10 junior from Utrecht, Netherlands, who talks about his brothers and the most influential person to him at Oregon State, former Beaver head coach Jimmy Anderson.
Has it been an easy transition for you to live in the United States?
SCHAFTENAAR: “Yes. Corvallis has been in my life for 10 years now, because my brother Roeland played at Oregon State. So it’s been a long time. Everything is pretty familiar, it wasn’t that hard of a transition, and I knew my coaches, too.”
Beaver fans know about Roeland, but you also have an older brother.
SCHAFTENAAR: “He actually has a regular, normal job. He played basketball at the highest level in Holland but his knee started bothering him and he quit. He plays at the lowest level just for fun. He finished his master’s degree in microbiology last year. Frank is probably the smartest of the three of us.”
Was there a lot of smack talk between you, Roeland and Frank?
SCHAFTENAAR: “Not really. They want me to do well. People have said I was supposed to be the best of the three because I was the youngest, and they always took me to play with them when I was very little so that’s why they expect me to be the best. I guess we’ll see.”
What is Roeland doing now?
SCHAFTENAAR: “He just signed to play professionally in Greece.”
Is college basketball tougher than you thought it would be?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I’ve seen a lot of college basketball before I came here, so I knew it was going to be more athletic and physical and it has been. I need to get more physical and I think I have improved in those areas for this year.”
What are your thoughts when people say you’re only a shooter?
SCHAFTENAAR: “It’s the role I was in my first two years; I was used as a shooter, to take a bunch of shots. If they go in, that’s nice. That was my role. This year it’s going to be a lot different. I’m going to be more of an inside presence, not just scoring, but make defenses collapse. I think I’m a pretty good passer and I can get my teammates the ball that way.”
Your career is similar to Roeland’s in that you both had a coaching change after your sophomore year.
SCHAFTENAAR: “That’s right. We both got new coaches our junior years and for him it was a good thing. I hope it will be a good thing for me, too. I’m definitely excited. My body feels great. My back has bothered me the last two years but it feels really good right now. I have been watching my diet and am in the best shape I can be.”
What do you like to do when you’re in Holland?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I like to chill out with friends, watch moves, play video games and maybe do some schoolwork.”
What is it like back home?
SCHAFTENAAR: “People are confused about Holland. They ask if Holland is a country, or is Amsterdam in Holland, or is it the Netherlands. People are always confused so I need to explain to them that Amsterdam is actually a city in the Netherlands; that Holland is just a different name for the Netherlands. I can say Holland too, the reason people call it Holland is because we have two provinces, South Holland and North Holland, but it’s really the Netherlands. We’re really small, but we do big things.”
You’ve become quite the fan of several Beaver sports teams.
SCHAFTENAAR: “I like it when other athletes go to my games and show support. I like watching their games and like to support them, to know what is up with them and how they are doing.”
What do people think when they see your family together since you are all so tall?
SCHAFTENAAR: “It’s a major attraction. People just come up and say, ‘Oh, you guys are so tall.’ You get used to it and have to deal with it. I guess it’s fine. Here in Amerca it’s better than in some places in Europe. Here, people say, ‘You guys must be basketball players,’ and that’s fun. In Europe people say, ‘Why are you guys so tall?’ It’s definitely a more positive thing here than back home.”
What did you do this past summer?
SCHAFTENAAR: “When I moved back home, we were moving to a different house. So I needed to move a lot of stuff. That was bad timing. When I was done, I had to leave (to return to school). I like our new house. We have a little swimming pool in the backyard, which wasn’t bad. I worked out and worked on my conditioning, but I also tried to spend some time with friends and family and enjoy my time in Holland.”
Do you feel fresh because you took some time from basketball?
SCHAFTENAAR: “Definitely. I wouldn’t say I didn’t play, but I didn’t play a whole lot. My knees got a chance to rest. It was definitely good.”
Do you have aspirations of playing on the Dutch National Team and perhaps in the Olympics or World Championships?
SCHAFTENAAR: “Next summer will be EuroBasketball 15. I have to see how it goes with OSU and summer school, but if I have a chance I would like to play with that team. I played in National U-16, U-18 and U-20s and they invited me to their tryouts this year, but I didn’t go because of summer school and because I wanted to be ready for the college season here. So I decided not to do that, but maybe next year. If I get an invite I will probably go.”
What would you like to do after basketball?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I am not sure. I am studying psychology and I don’t know what I want to do with that. But I know psychology you can go a lot of different ways with it, work with companies or sports teams, so there are a lot of different directions you can go.”
Does a psychology degree help you in sports?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I would say yes. And it also helps you understand how other people act sometimes. Sometimes you recognize things such as, that’s why he does things his way, and not the way I would do it. I think it’s really interesting and the reason why I majored in psychology. I think it’s interesting to learn why people act the way they act sometimes and do things the way they do.”
Who has been the most influential person to you at Oregon State?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I would say Jimmy Anderson. He has really been a good friend. I met him when I was 12, and we kept in touch. When my brother played here we would always go visit them; they have great food, his wife Fifi is a great cook. Jimmy comes to practice a lot and watches us, and I always talk to him.”
What are your thoughts about the upcoming Beaver basketball season?
SCHAFTENAAR: “I think this year a lot of players are going to have opportunities they didn’t have the last two years. I think that is going to be exciting. I think people are going to be surprised at the chemistry this team will have and how much of a team we are going to be. We might have a little less individual talent but I feel we can definitely make up for it by being a better team and doing things the right way on the court and off the court. If everybody believes in that I think we will be able to surprise some teams and prove people wrong about us.”