Ryan Stack


Ryan Eugene Stack is an American and Macedonian former professional basketball player. He currently resides in Tennessee where he is a General Manager for Waste Industries.

Professional career

Stack, a 6 ft 11 in forward/center from the University of South Carolina, was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round of the 1998 NBA Draft. He saw limited playing time in two seasons with the Cavaliers, as the backup to All-Star center Žydrūnas Ilgauskas. After playing in just 43 games for the Cavaliers, Stack signed a contract to play in Europe, and played for Gijón team from Spain's ACB for the 2000–01 season.
The next season, Stack moved to Israel and was signed by the Maccabi Ramat Gan team. After the year in Israel, he moved to Greece and was signed by Aris Thessaloniki; he played there from 2002 to 2006. In all of those years with the team, he won the EuroCup Challenge in 2003, and reached the EuroCup final in 2006. He was then the highest paid center in Europe.
Stack was signed by Olympiacos, for whom he played one season, in August 2006. He then signed with the Ukrainian league team BK Kyiv.

Macedonia national team

While playing for Aris Thessaloniki, Stack adopted the citizenship of Republic of Macedonia and went by the name of Ruan Stik. That way he could play as a European on a Bosman passport, and thus not count as one of the two non-Europeans that were allowed per team in the Greek League at that time. He played for the Republic of Macedonia in several FIBA EuroBasket and FIBA World Cup qualifications.