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KUALA LUMPUR – Through hoops and nets, freestyler and streetballer, Scalia Nethanial rose to the top to becoming number one in his field. What started out as a form of escape for this Malaysia born Filipino from his rough upbringing, became a career that brought him to the top.
Scalia started his career in freestyle basketball performances and streetball in Malaysia where he has won championships and even signed with AND1, yet he always remembers his roots in Basista, Pangasinan, Philippines.
While the pandemic has put a halt to many ballers’, freestylers’ and performers’ career, Scalia seems to have taken advantage of this time to use his voice and platform to bring a spark of change in the lives of those who follow him. “I noticed this year that a lot of ballers, freestylers, performers, quit and started doing something else. While this is good, to adapt, but I want to show them that this is not forever and that we can bounce back from this.
To Scalia, time indoors only proved to be more eye-opening for a call to serve, especially with the platform and following that he has built over the years. “I feel like now is not the time for us to celebrate our personal achievements, but to use our platforms to shine a light on things that are not being highlighted. “Having this platform shouldn’t just be all about basketball, it should also be about reaching out to people in a more positive way.
And he lives upon his words as his name started blowing up in the Philippines. In Scalia’s hometown, where children are too poor to attend online classes and girls are getting pregnant at very a young age, Scalia has become a symbol of hope and an inspiration to them. “I wanted to show people in Basista that just because that’s where you grew up, you’re not going to stay there forever. You can still make it out here. “I didn’t’ go back home to just spin a basketball, I wanted to make some sort of change.”
For Scalia, basketball was never his one-way ticket out of poverty, but a tool to reach out to the less fortunate. “Freestyle basketball is a tool; I never use it as my ticket to success but to reach out to people especially the less fortunate.”
Despite the pandemic, lockdowns and being miles away from his hometown, Scalia was still able to inspire and bring hope to the young minds through his testimony. He sponsored a talent competition called “The Scalia Talent Challenge” for children to focus on positive distractions aside from the common vices. “I want to inspire more kids to use this to as an escape instead of using drugs, smoking or drinking.
We can never be sure of the hand we are dealt with in life, but how we play that hand tells us a lot more about ourselves. Scalia turned a bad deck into a winning hand; becoming the top basketball freestyler, and now a strong supporter and ambassador for a major sports brand. And like everything else that has been dealt to him, he is able to turn a global pandemic into an inspirational journey.
“Even with the Covid pandemic, I was somewhat able to make a difference. – The Vibes, October 18, 2020
