Jankunas remembers his first time with Zalgiris 0

The #ZalgirisVirgin project that aims to invite fans to support their beloved Zalgiris in person for the first time brought in a true symbol of Kaunas basketball and longtime team captain Paulius Jankunas to talk about his first time in a Zalgiris game.

Having gone through the entire height of the Zalgiris system, the big man remembers his first time in the legendary Kaunas Sports Hall.

“I think I was seventeen at that time. I can’t really remember, but there might have been a few times with my parents when I was really little. I was already playing for Zalgiris’ secondary team, so they’d give us invitations to see the how the main team plays. It was really impressive… The arena was full, it was a EuroLeague game. The pure loudness of Kaunas Sports Hall… It was a unique atmosphere, really loud.”

Jankunas noted that it was a spectacular experience to see the whole new level of basketball in a EuroLeague game and the opportunity to get up and close to his basketball idols.

“Everything seemed to be impressive, since everything was new to me. We’d normally play in smaller halls and we had never experienced that as players. But personally, I hadn’t had that experience even as a spectator. That day, I got to see a EuroLeague game in Kaunas Sports Hall… The loudness, the basketball, the EuroLeague itself. It was all so new to me. And all those players that I’d only seen on TV, they were just right there, a couple meters away.”

Just a couple years later, Jankunas was already one of the faces fans would look up to from the stands. In 2003, he donned the green-and-white Zalgiris jersey on the hardwood of Kaunas Sports Hall and moved on to the newly built Zalgirio Arena in 2011.

“I was really glad that we’d have such an incredible arena in Kaunas. At that time, and even right now, it remains one of the finest and most modern arenas not only in the Baltics, but quite possibly in Europe. Zalgiris already needed a new arena. They had outgrown the Kaunas Sports Hall. It was truly really fun to have a new arena in such a beautiful location in Kaunas. It’s something to be proud of.”

Fans visiting Zalgirio Arena for the first time can purchase the #ZalgirisVirgin package and go to meetings where they meet like-minded people and have a tour and test out the entertainment of the gorgeous Zalgirio Arena.