November 19, 1998

The journey of a college basketball player is a long one for most. For Villanova senior center Rafal Bigus, however, the road was even longer. Traveling to the United States from his native country of Poland just before his junior year of high school, Bigus now enters his senior season on the Main Line hoping to complete his journey by continuing the steady improvement that he has made in each of his first three seasons as a Wildcat.

Growing up in Stargard, Poland, soccer and not basketball, was most often the sport of choice. The NBA wasn't popular yet because at the time, games could not be seen on television like they can now. As time went on, the sport's popularity began to grow as the media's coverage of the NBA began to increase. Introduced to the game in seventh grade gym class, Bigus' love for basketball grew just as the game itself did in Poland. As Bigus shot around in an open gym one day as he often did, a coach involved with one of the local club teams saw the tall youngster.

"Club teams started getting more popular in Poland because of the NBA. Everyone wanted to be like the NBA because they were the best," said Bigus. "One day a club coach saw me play and told me to come out to a couple practices. I liked it and after starting to practice regularly, I began going up the ladder from the junior team and then to the senior team."

Bigus climbed the ladder so quickly, that he soon was a member of the national team. It was at a tournament in Germany with the national team that he got his big break. One of the 16 teams present at the tournament was a team from the United States. Since a large number of the players were from the high school ranks, numerous college coaches were there to observe. Bigus caught one of the coaches' eyes and after a couple of phone calls, the opportunity for him to come to the United States to play high school ball presented itself.

"I didn't know what to do at first," said Bigus. "I always wanted to come over here to play because it was the best basketball, and I knew that if I didn't come now I never would."

So during the summer before his seventeenth birthday, Bigus made the long journey to the United States. He moved in with the head coach of Archbishop Carroll High School, Tom Ingelsby, and was slated to begin his junior season in 1993. Not only did Bigus have to learn what he found out was a totally different game of basketball in the U.S., but he had to learn to speak the English language as well.

"Things were a lot different here; there were different people and it was a different culture, but I knew I could fit in," said Bigus. "The toughest adjustment was learning the language. My first day of practice, the coach came in with an English/Polish dictionary. It was hard, but I watched a a lot of cartoons, a lot of American movies and I had a lot of people there to help me."

With the help of Ingelsby, Bigus learned quickly and improved daily. In his first season for Archbishop Carroll, he was named the Catholic League Southern Division's Most Valuable Player. One year later, he led the Patriots to their first Catholic League title in school history, averaging 16.3 points, 11.3 rebounds and 4.6 blocks.

"Coach Ingelsby helped me tremendously," said Bigus. "He was a great coach and a great guy. He helped me adjust to a different game because the European game is slower and much more scripted. I also spent Christmas and all the other holidays with him and his family, so they were like another family to me."

In his first few years in this new country, not much surprised Bigus. Until Tom Ingelsby came home one day with a big bag of letters that were all addressed to Bigus: His first introduction to the process of college recruiting.

"Recruiting was a whole new level. No one had ever told me about it," said Bigus. "One day coach came in with a big bag of letters all for me. I thought to myself what's going on here, what do they all want?' Everyday was another letter or another phone call."

After making the long trip from Poland to the U.S., the last thing Bigus wanted to do was to have to adjust to yet another new place. Being just down the street from Villanov at Archbishop Carroll, the choice to stay on the Main Line just made too much sense to pass up. When Bigus finally got to Villanova, he found that although he didn't have to learn a new culture or a new language as he did two years before, he again had to learn a new game.

"When I got here, I found that the adjustment to the college game would be a big one," said Bigus. "Everyone is faster at the college level and people were just as big. In high school, you'd have two guys that were good. In college there are 10 guys that can play. At Carroll I played against Lari Ketner who is at UMass now and against maybe one more big guy. Here I had to go up against Jason Lawson, and Chuck Kornegay everyday at practice."

In his freshman season for the Wildcats, Bigus played in 28 games averaging 2.8 points and 2.2 rebounds. He had a season high with 11 points versus North Carolina in the Maui Invitational and posted four double figure scoring outings on the season. Despite Villanova winning 24 games one season later in 1996-97 and making the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season, Bigus struggled at times and averaged only 2.3 points and 2.5 rebounds. "My first couple of years, I had to adjust to college life and to basketball," said Bigus. "But it was a learning experience. I learned about the game itself and I learned about my role on and off the court."

Last season, Bigus and the Wildcats showed flashes of brilliance, but neither lived up to the expectations they carried for themselves, as Villanova finished the season at 12-17. Although he started in 17 of the 29 games in which he played, and averaged career highs in points (8.2) and rebounds (5.1), Bigus didn't feel he maintained the same consistency throughout the season.

"My junior year was disappointing for the team and for myself personally," said Bigus. "We played some games when we were good and some games when we were bad. It was hard because we didn't have guys who had played a lot before. It was new for all of us."

Heading into his final season at Villanova, Bigus is one piece of a three man senior class that will be counted on to take the Wildcats back to their usual winning ways. The pressure is not there, however, at least for Bigus who has been through more than his share of hard times and has overcome them all. If he had quit when things had not gone his way, he wouldn't still be in this new land that he now calls home.

"I am proud of myself because I have been here for almost six years. Sometimes I just wanted to go home when things weren't going my way. If I had gone home though, I would have been a quitter. I have to prove to myself and to the people back home that I could do it," said Bigus. "I am stilled learning something new everyday. You just have to do the work and put the time in on the court and in the classroom. Sure, it probably takes me longer than some students, but if I take my time I can do anything I set my mind to."

After five years in a country foreign to him and three years playing basketball in the Big East, this is Bigus' time. A time when all the hard work and even the struggle will pay off because Bigus has never given up. While most student-athletes were completing normal, everyday tasks, he was learning a new language and a different brand of basketball. But time heals all wounds, and after three years of learning on the job, Bigus' time is now.