Not many people get to pursue a job while traveling the globe, play a game they love, and still retire at the age of 30. But Tony Meier did just that when he made the decision to walk away from playing basketball professionally overseas this past summer.
 
"It was a combination of a lot of things and COVID-19 definitely played a role," Meier said. "It affected the basketball market overseas. A lot of clubs were affected financially and some were even folding. It came down to not knowing if my family would be able to come with me due to visa restrictions and issues due to COVID."
 
Meier had spent a successful 2019-20 campaign with Stelmet Zielona Góra of the PLK (Polska Liga Koszykówki) in Poland, averaging 11.2 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. He was offered another contract following the season which he signed again with the team in June.
 
However, following nearly eight years of playing professionally – with wife, Stephanie, and two young children to consider and the COVID-19 pandemic to navigate – Meier announced his retirement in late July.
 
"It was already getting hard with two young kids," Meier said. "So even though I felt just fine physically and personally, the other side of everything with family just got to be too much. We wanted to be around the grandparents and things like that."
 
Let's step back in time and set the stage. Meier played in over 100 games in a Panther career that spanned from 2008 through 2012. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a 3.64 grade-point average as a business major.
 
"My favorite memories from college probably come from the same season," he said. "My junior year when we won the conference regular season and ended up hosting Butler in the championship game at Panther Arena. That was one of my most memorable experiences, even though it ended in a loss. We beat them twice that year but that third time when it really mattered they got us. Then they went to the NCAA championship back-to-back, so to beat that team was pretty cool."
 
He scored over 1,000 points (1,044 to be exact) while grabbing nearly 500 rebounds (486) and recorded 189 made three-pointers overall. He also was a two-time NACDA Division I-AAA Scholar-Athlete and claimed a spot as a senior on the 2012 Capital One Academic All-Region team.
 
There were plenty of college highlights for Meier, and it started quickly. He collected a double-double of 14 points and 12 rebounds in the season opener against Loyola Marymount his first year, becoming the first true freshman to record a double-double in his UWM debut in school history.
 
A two-time Horizon League Player of the Week, he started 30 games for Milwaukee as a freshman before injuries slowed him down. As a junior he poured in a career-high 28 points in a win at Cleveland State in February and played a key role down the stretch as the team won the regular-season Horizon League title. He tallied 15 points in a league tournament semifinal win over Valparaiso and closed out the campaign with 19 points in a loss at Northwestern in the first round of the NIT. He helped MKE go 19-14 that season, falling in the Horizon League Tournament Championship to a Butler team that would go on to advance to the Final Four for a second straight year – a Bulldog team they had beaten by 24 points at home and six points on the road during the regular season.
 
He played in 28 games as a senior after missing time with a calf injury at the start, leading the team in scoring at 11.3 ppg, adding 5.0 rebounds per contest and a .395 (66-of-167) shooting percentage from long-range. Meier netted a season-high of 26 points against Loyola in February of 2012, a game that included six made three-pointers, and grabbed a career-best 11 rebounds in a win over UIC later that month. The team returned to the postseason after a 20-14 campaign, with Meier recording a team-high 18 points and nine rebounds against TCU in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational.
 
It was then on to Quincy University after graduating from UWM, where he played volleyball on scholarship while finishing his MBA. It was during his time there that his overseas basketball plans began to take shape.
 
"I actually was going to grad school at Quincy and played volleyball there to get my MBA done," he said. "I left a little early to go to Australia. It was somewhere I always wanted to go and I had heard good things about the league. I left Quincy to go play basketball and that was how it started."
 
That first landing point for Meier's pro career was with the Frankston Blues of the South East Australian Basketball League. It did not quite go as planned, however, after an ankle injury derailed his efforts.
 
"I was only there three months because I ended up getting hurt," Meier said. "Just being out on my own for the first time and in a foreign country – I was near Melbourne – the country itself is beautiful. The whole place was incredible."
 
It was a great learning experience for Meier and, after rehabbing and training throughout the summer, helped him earn another opportunity to play. The next contract came with Vitória in Portugal, a member of the Liga Portuguesa de Basquetebol (LPB).
 
"I was the only American on the team that year which was rare, but there was a real family vibe with the team," Meier said. "I lived with a couple of my Portuguese teammates and made some lifelong friends."
 
He played well, averaging 14.9 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game. He led the team in scoring and helped them to a second-place finish.
 
"We had a good team – everyone got along really well and I had a good season," he said. "It was a great experience and I loved living in Portugal."
 
That season, his fiancé was working in Chicago and was only able to visit a couple of times. She also went to UW-Milwaukee and Panther fans will remember her as Stephanie Schell – the only four-time team captain in MKE program history who played in 82 games from 2007-2011.
 
"It was the hardest thing to go through, but made us stronger," Meier said. "The language barrier and culture shock is a little challenging at first, so having an open mind helps."
 
His first full season was strong enough to land him a contract that September. He was off to Poland, set to play in a more competitive and lucrative league with Starogard Gdański.
 
Poland was a tough stop however and, after that season, a big step awaited Meier that took him to Greece.
 
"Poland was a rough year for me, we ended up dead-last in the league," Meier said. "I did okay (he averaged 14.1 ppg in 30 games), but was living in a small town with nothing to do. And it was cold all the time. Going to Greece was a breath of fresh air."
 
On July 23, 2015, Meier signed a one-year deal with Apollon Patras of the Greek Basket League in July of 2015. That renewed feeling carried over to the court and he ended the season averaging 11.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game.
 
"Greece is such a beautiful country and probably my favorite that I lived in over all of the years I played," he said. "Full of genuinely nice people, a laid-back culture, a beachy-vibe and of course, the area is just beautiful. The food was wonderful there too."
 
Next up, the professional road led to the Czech League in fall of 2016, signing with ČEZ Nymburk – the best basketball team in the Czech Republic and winner of 13 consecutive titles prior to his arrival. It ended with the Czech Cup – Meier's first championship overseas.
 
"Nymburk is a club that consistently is at the top of the Czech league," Meier said. "We were defending their title from the prior year with a really good group of guys. It's about 45 minutes south of Prague in Czech Republic, which was one of the coolest cities in all of Europe that I experienced."
 
He averaged 10.3 points in 38 games and, for the first time, was not by himself while traveling overseas.
 
"It was a fun year – it was right after we got married," Meier said. "Steph did play on the women's team over there – just a smaller team in third division, but through the same club that I was playing for. It was a nice thing for her to be able to do while I was playing. Other than that year, she didn't play. For the first three years, she wasn't with me and only visited from time to time."
 
With a title in hand, but not a contract, Greece came calling again for Meier.
 
He returned to his favorite locale and signed with Lavrio, putting up per-game averages of 10.9 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. The family stayed – and grew with the birth of a daughter – with Meier signing with Promitheas Patras of the Greek Basket League in 2018. He enjoyed another solid season on the court, scoring at a 12.1 ppg clip in his 16 appearances.
 
"The level of competition was great," Meier said. "That is some good basketball. The league is very competitive and we played in their version of the 'Champions League' of basketball over there and got to travel to numerous countries."
 
What turned out to be his last stop came next, and it was actually back to Poland, of all places. Meier signed with Stelmet Zielona Góra of the PLK. Again, success on the court was shown by averaging 11.2 points, 4.1 rebound and 2.1 assists per game during the 2019-20 campaign. Then came a global pandemic, as well as another addition to the family.
 
"Stelmet is a small town, but a nice city," Meier said. "My son was born right after the season got shut down in Zielona Góra. It was a good year and we traveled all around – Saint Petersburg, Moscow … we even went to Siberia for a couple of games."
 
Things changed quickly over the remainder of the summer as Meier and the rest of his family were trying to figure out what was going on – and what to do next. He re-signed with the club in late June. However, just over a month later, he officially announced his retirement.
 
"It was just time for us and I feel like it was the right move," Meier said. "I think we made the right call on staying home and getting life going back here."