June 2, 2006

The Nova Notebook, by Villanova director of media relations Mike Sheridan, appears each Friday from September through February and monthly from April through in August. In the second of our special June entries with an eye towards the National Basketball Association draft, we catch up with the travels of Randy Foye.

Not long ago, Randy Foye found himself at a conference table inside an office. A representative from a trading card company was seated across from him. The guest's assignment was to keep feeding Foye sheets of paper, each filled with 30 blank slots for the former Wildcat to autograph. By the end of this meeting, the native of Newark, N.J., would affix 3,000 signatures to the sheets. Soon after the National Basketball Association draft, the autographs will begin to appear on rookie cards bearing Foye's likeness.

The Randy Foye collectibles - coming soon to a store near you.

The recently graduated Villanova standout sometimes stills marvels at it all. On the strength of a terrific senior season that saw him named Big East Conference player of the year and a first team All-American, Foye's stock has never been higher. Although it is difficult to surmise the destination at this point, he is a topic of discussion for a variety of franchises with lottery picks. His status is such that he is one of the elite who will not take the court at the league's draft camp in Orlando next week, though he will attend to be measured and interviewed.

It hit home on the eve of his first NBA audition in Houston.

"In the hotel in Houston that first night I went to my room," he recalls. "When I looked out the window I could see the top of the Toyota Center. It seemed hard to believe that I would be in there the next morning and this was really here, the start of my pro career."

Foye confesses that there was a fair measure of anxiety coursing through his veins that night. Like his former backcourt partner and roommate, Allan Ray, he understood what could be at stake and it created some uneasiness.

"The first 15 minutes of that workout," he says, "I was on edge. But it's like playing your first game in college - once you get into, you settle down. You do what you always do, and that's play basketball."

Since that first audition, Foye has been on a whirlwind of sorts. After working out for the Rockets coaching and personnel staff, the guard moved on to Boston, Oklahoma City (temporary home to the Hornets), Golden State and Utah. The pace has been frenzied at times.

"It kind of feels like I've been flying all the time," he says. "You spend about 19 hours in a city and then it's on to the next place."

The pattern is one that actually began before the end of the spring semester. Foye traveled to Kansas City for the Senior Class Awards on Final Four weekend. One week later he was in Los Angeles as a finalist for the John R. Wooden Award. Then there were trips to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., in the week following exams.

Yet Foye is fully aware that the first-class travel and accommodations can't obscure the task at hand.

"One thing you recognize right away," he says, "is that these are job interviews. When you are finished with the workout, you sit down with the coaches and staff and they go around the room, asking you questions. It is a job interview and you have to present yourself as a professional."

Foye's workout tour comes to a place he knows quite well this weekend. On Saturday, June 3, he will audition for the Philadelphia 76ers at their PCOM practice facility. The notion of playing in the city where he has spent the last four seasons has great appeal to the product of East Side High School, as does the franchise's proximity to his many friends at Villanova. In fact, the workout itself gave him a chance to catch up with former teammates and coaches on campus.

"I haven't really been gone very long," he states, "but it's good to see everyone."

The memories of the commencement exercises of May 21 remain very vivid to Foye. It was a beautiful, sun-splashed spring morning and a number of Foye's friends and family members made the trip down the New Jersey Turnpike for the ceremony before a packed Villanova Stadium crowd, including his grandmother Ruth Martin and god-brother Zegale Kelliehan. Prior to the event, the group joined coach Jay Wright, his staff, and family and friends for breakfast and a champagne toast in the basketball locker room inside the Pavilion.

"It was exciting but it was also sad, in a way," Foye says. "It was special for my family to see me graduate. School always came first to them. That was something my grandmother reminded me of last year when they talked about me coming out early. So for them to see me in the cap and gown was something we're all going to remember.

"But you also look around at all of the people you've gotten to know and become friends with. All of us students are going off on our own way. We were together for four years and that day we said goodbye. So there was some sadness too."

With a little less than four weeks until the draft, Foye figures to visit more cities and more NBA organizations. By most accounts, he has excelled in the workouts. Plus, he has become convinced that the NBA has paid close attention to his body of work at Villanova.

"The workouts are important but they already know what you can do," Foye says. "They watched me play in person at Villanova and on tape. Before you walk into the building, they have a real good feel for how you play."

Still, job interviews, even ones this glamorous, tend to be stressful. Foye is taking it as it comes and enjoying the view yet he is very much looking forward to the end of the month, when the issue of where he will begin his NBA career is finally settled.

"I am anxious - I can't wait to get to a team and start my career," he says.