Posted: 8/28/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Brad Vest Illinois' Brian Randle attempts a shot during a game against Northwestern Jan. 27. Illinois beat Northwestern, 70-37.

Brian Randle stayed awake as long as he could Tuesday night.

The miles passed on his drive from Champaign to Peoria - roughly 90 of them - after a final round of "goodbyes," and " see you laters" went down around campus.

The former Illini was thinking about his 14-hour flight from O'Hare to Israel, with an expected layover in London's Heathrow Airport. His new town and the home of his new team, Hapoel Gilboa Galil Elyon, have awaited his arrival since Randle signed a contract to play for the club one week ago.

He hoped that staying awake would get him tired - tired enough that falling asleep through the entire flight wouldn't be a problem. Last night, he planned to stay awake as well. But maybe, as he hinted, he wasn't staying awake only to exhaust himself.

These were the last two nights Randle wouldn't be six thousand miles away from his family home, friends, his father Charles, and his mother Maryann. Anticipating his first extended stay in a foreign country, he was taking it all in once more. With the anxious nerves of a rookie, he waited with his family.

"It's going to be a big jump for me," he said by phone Wednesday morning. "I talked to my mom last night about all of it - that was really hard. I've talked to my dad a lot, too. It's not like going to work in another U.S. city. It's halfway around the world, in an entirely different culture, without access to the people I love that have been such a huge part of my life."

For Maryann, it means not seeing her boy as often. To comfort herself, she said she tries to remember the thousands of other families separated by great distances.

"This isn't the first time this has ever happened to anybody," she said. "But that doesn't mean I can't miss him. I'm going to. Of course I'm going to."

For Charles, the thought of Brian playing basketball overseas - or maybe the thought of not being able to see his son play - caused him to pause.

"We've been so used to driving 90 miles and see him play, not only in Champaign, but at different places across the country," Charles said. "We've been able to attend 90-95 percent of the games before now. After the NBA draft, we knew it might be an uphill struggle for him to prove himself, to make a team, and show he has the ability to be an elite player.

Continued...

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