Brown University Hoopster Gianna Aiello Pivots to #ClimateComeback as EcoAthletes Champion
Gianna Aiello’s basketball journey started in a most unlikely place.
“I was in a dance studio parking lot in Matawan, New Jersey,” the Brown University junior recounted. “I had been a dance kid, everything from tap to hip hop, when I was growing up in Staten Island. My family moved to Matawan when I was in 8th grade. Anyway, I’m in the parking lot and a parent of a kid on the basketball team came up to me and said I should play, too. I should mention that I was a tall kid. So, she gave me the coach’s number and I gave him a call.”
That call turned out to be life changing for Aiello, in more ways than one.
“Coach Stone started coaching me and I fell in love with basketball right away,” she continued. “It truly was love at first sight, or first dribble or shot. And because my brother Jason was fighting a battle against leukemia — which was hell for him, and beyond difficult for all of us. I really needed the constancy, the structure that basketball gave me. It truly found a place in my heart.”
As a 13-year-old basketball beginner, Aiello was way behind her much more experienced teammates — she didn’t even know the rules at the time. But she had some distinct advantages, beyond being tall.
“My dance background helped a lot; it helped me with my movement and coordination,” she noted. “I naturally had a good instinct for rebounding. And thanks to the help of intense 9 AM Sunday morning practice sessions with Coach Stone, I became a quick learner as a post player. Did I always want to go to those practices? Maybe not. But I knew I needed the work, so I went.”
While COVID put a chokehold on many youth sports activities, Aiello played a lot of pickup ball with a trainer. Her AAU team’s season was not canceled and so she was able to develop her game during her junior year in high school, a key time for college recruitment. Thanks to a connection from her trainer, the new coaching staff at Brown University were able to see her play. Not long after that, she committed to the Ivy League school.
The jump from high school and AAU to Division I basketball at Brown was, not surprisingly, a big one for the inexperienced Aiello. Same thing when it came to her off the court life at the Providence, Rhode Island school.
“I was in full-time learning mode my freshman year, in the classroom and on the court,” she related. “Solving puzzles has always been something I loved, as well as making and fixing things. So, I’m pursuing computer engineering, with a focus on developing next level hardware. Basketball-wise, at the beginning, you could see on film that I was thinking and not moving instinctively, and that I was a bit tired. It took a while but as the season went on and especially once we started Ivy League play, I began to adjust, to feel a bit more comfortable. As a team, we had a tough season, finishing last in the league but in our last few games, you could see that we were getting better.”
Gianna Aiello (Photo credit: Brown University Athletics)
She made a big improvement in her sophomore season, especially with her offensive skills both close to and away from the basket. This allowed her to break into the starting lineup in Brown’s early-season non-conference games; she then played a key role off the bench during the Ivy League campaign. The team mirrored Aiello as they moved up to a 6th place finish.
This summer was a multi-faceted basketball fest for the 6’4” center. Aiello:
Went to Panama with a group of student-athletes to help build basketball courts for kids,
Worked with the WNBA’s New York Liberty in their PR department,
Played top-quality pick-up ball in New Jersey, working on improving her outside game on offense.
And Aiello also became an EcoAthletes Champion, our third from Brown, joining alumnae Jacquie Pierri (ice hockey) and Niki Uberoi (tennis) in the #ClimateComeback.
“I’ve had a genuine concern about the impacts of environmental degradation and climate change since I was very young,” she shared. “The climate crisis and its human causality are obvious, and the resulting problems are everywhere, including in sports. Reduced snowfall is changing winter and snow sports right before our eyes. Record-setting heat this summer is affecting outdoor sports, from tennis to baseball to, yes, pick-up basketball. Playing on those incredibly hot, humid days has been challenging to say the least.”
Aiello recognizes that she has a platform as an NCAA student-athlete and a potential pro basketball player down the road (“I hope to play pro ball overseas after graduation”). She aims to use it in support of climate action, and looks forward to working with EcoAthletes to amplify her impact.
“I am very excited about being an EcoAthletes Champion,” asserted Aiello. “I have a lot to learn about climate change, especially climate communications and I know my fellow Champions and the EcoAthletes organization will help speed up that process. I can’t wait!
“Gianna has an opportunity to make a positive difference on the #ClimateComeback in so many ways,” enthused EcoAthletes founder and CEO Lew Blaustein. “Using her platform as a college basketball player and perhaps a pro. If she continues along the sports PR track, then she can use that platform in support of climate action. And if she goes along the computer engineering road, I imagine Gianna working to make computing more energy efficient. We are lucky to have her on the Champions team!”