foye article

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Randy Foye sat at the kitchen table of his new Middletown home, ice packs on
both knees following his daily workout. With his feet elevated and resting
on a chair, he enjoyed lunch with some friends, including his girlfriend of
two years, Christine Rivera, manager Chris Champeau, and Mike Nardi, his
former teammate at Villanova University.

The scene could have been plucked from Foye's college days, or even as a
star recruit at East Side High School in Newark, before he hit his first big
payday as an NBA player. He was not sitting in a dorm room or dining hall on
campus, or hanging out with friends at his grandmother's apartment in
Newark, but like Foye has done in every stage of his young life, he has made
himself feel at home in good company.

The 6-foot-4 guard is preparing for his third NBA season with the Minnesota
Timberwolves, one that Foye hopes will have far less turbulence than his
first two. Foye spent the early part of his rookie year fighting for playing
time before settling into regular minutes, and followed his rookie campaign
by missing the first half of his second season with a stress reaction in his
left kneecap. He finished the 2007-08 season by averaging 18.4 points per
game over the final 10 games and hopes to carry that momentum into 2008-09.

"I'm ready to go,'' Foye said. "I had a good finish to the season, so I'm
looking forward to getting back at it.''

Foye's workouts consist of weight training, running and basketball, a
majority of which take place either at Rumson-Fair Haven High School or
Monmouth University.

The off-season started with a three-week layoff to recover from the half
season he played followed by a return to training, a schedule suggested to
him by his former teammate, Kevin Garnett.

Before heading off to Boston as the centerpiece of a six-player trade, the
reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year sat down with Foye and told him
what he thought Foye needed to do in the off-season.

"Before, the off-season was just the off-season,'' Foye said. "I'd kind of
take a break and then once the season was a few weeks away, I'd pick it up
again.

"He sat down with me and said, "Take three weeks and get yourself right back
into it. Don't let your body fall out of shape.' I took that to heart coming
from him. Anyone who was around me the end of last summer, they know. I was
working harder than I ever worked.''

While living in the area, he has tried to engrain a place in the community
by running camps, working with local players, and making the 45-minute drive
north to Newark to participate in community-building efforts in his
hometown.

Foye will bring both his roots and his new neighborhood together at Rumson
Country DaySchool in early August, where he will run a basketball camp for
local young players as wel as a number of urban players from both Asbury
Park and Newark area, whom Foye said will attend free of charge. Most of
Foye's charitable work is done through the "The Randy Foye Foundation,'' of
which Foye is chairman and CEO.

"With a lot of the kids I come across, they just need to believe they can
make somethng of themselves,'' Foye said. "So it's not just about teaching
them basketball or telling them to stay in school, but to just show them
someone who came from where they came from and made it in life.''

Long way home

From the day he was born, Foye has faced uncertainty. Not just the kind of
uncertainty that most adolescents and young adults face, but the type of
uncertainty that would make the average person wonder how they would make it
through the week.

His father was killed in a motorcycle accident when Foye was 3-years-old and
his mother disappeared when he was 6, never to be found. Foye spent the next
few years living with various relatives, until his grandmother, Ruth Martin,
took him in.

After emerging as a blue-chip basketball prospect at Newark's East Side High
School, Fye chose to attend Villanova University, where he was part of a
recruiting class that included Jason Fraser, Allan Ray and Curtis Sumpter,
all of whom were highly-regarded recruits.

When Nardi joined the team the next year, expectations were high for the
Wildcats, but the team did not make the NCAA Tournament while Fraser, the
6-10 center who was the most highly regarded of the class, started
experiencing knee problems that would plague him over the course of his
college career.

Injuries to his teammates aside, Foye led the Wildcats to a 24-8 record and
a Sweet 16appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 2004-05. The next year, the
Wildcats went 28-5 despit losing Sumpter to injury at the beginning of the
season, and Foye earned a spot on the APAll-American Team by averaging 20.5
points, 5.8 assists and 3.0 assists.

"It was tough, because I feel like if we stayed healthy, we would have won a
championhip and maybe even two,'' Foye said. ""But Coach Wright never let us
feel sorry for ourselves and we still played every game like we knew we were
the best team.''

Foye was selected with the seventh pick of the 2006 NBA draft by the
Portland Trail Blazers, and his rights were traded to the Timberwolves for
Brandon Roy. While players selected after Foye in the draft were ushered out
of the back room at the Madison Square Garden Theater, Foye and Roy were
left behind waiting to here where they would end up.

"When you sit there in that back room and you don't know where you're going,
it's a long night,'' said Foye, whose Timberwolves made a draft-day trade
again this year when they acquired the No. 5 pick Kevin Love as part of a
deal with the Memphis Grizzlies. "Me and (Roy) still talk about it
sometimes.''

Beyond basketball

While his job took him to Minnesota and on NBA road trips for two years,
Foye has stil had his mind set on returning to his home state. During the
last two summers, he stayed in Middletown the guest house of Champeau, with
whom Foye came in contact through Coach Wright at Villanova.

Champeau and Wright go back to Wright's days as the head coach at Hofstra
University. he two met while playing basketball together at the Downtown
Athletic Club 12 years ago. Champeau has helped his one and only NBA client
acclimate himself to the area over the last two years and has also helped
Foye get his feet wet as an entrepreneur. Foye is part owner of a new brand
of energy water called "Fyxxwater'' and is an investor in a new Minneapois
hotel.

"Not a lot of athletes go through what he's gone through and come out with
the perspetive on life that Randy has,'' said Champeau, who also is the
president of the Randy Foye Foundation.

"The thing about Randy is that he treats everyone with the same respect. No
"I'm in te NBA stuff.' Just a humble and refreshing dude.''

Eye to the future

Now that Foye has an off-season home of his own that is close to Newark .
but "not to close'' as he put it . his focus can shift back to settling in
as one of the NBA's premier guards. Since winning the MVP of the Vegas
Summer League as a rookie in 2006, Foye's early NBA career has been hampered
by sporadic playing time and injuries, with flashes of brilliance mixed in.

"Coming into everything (last year), I really felt as though I was on pace
to have a killer season,'' Foye said. "I'm always willing to get everyone in
the game, but once I gt going, it feels like nobody can stop me. I had
spurts in games where I'd score 17, 18 points in a row my rookie year and
last year. At the same time, you gotta be on a winning team. The only way
anyone notices you is if you win, so that's the goal.''

Foye's whole life has been about adapting to unexpected change and the signs
of changeare all around: he no longer lives down the street from a
playground, but instead a golf course. His 5-month-old daughter, Paige,
plays in front of the television in the living room, a spot that would have
been occupied by Foye and his friends playing video games a few years back.
Moving trucks are still dropping off Foye's belongings, just as he's
preparing to gather up many of those belongings to head out to training camp
in Las Vegas, for which he left for this past week.

Foye is finally in a place where he can move to the next stages of both his
life and hs career, while still trying to help those who are struggling in
situations similar to what he experienced growing up. No matter where his
basketball career takes him . and as a restricted free agent after next
year, that could be anywhere . Foye finally feels at home.