COLUMN: Romanczuk knows where he belongs

The Palestra was alive yesterday, that familiar pulse of basketball on hardwood echoing through the gym. But that's not unusual, even in the offseason, as members of the men's basketball team were engaged in a heated set of pickup games. Likewise, there was little unusual about watching No. 51 hustle up and down the court. See the big guy box out Ugonna. See him steal a Klatsky pass and move down court for a quietly uncontested jam. See him step outside and miss a three. But No. 51 was not Geoff Owens, who stood off in the shadows practicing his free throws while his teammates battled on the court. Rather, in a borrowed pair of Owens' team-issue shorts and mixing it up in the offensive frontcourt with Koko Archibong and Andrew Coates, was former All-Ivy first-teamer and would-be accountant Paul Romanczuk. "I really thought I had put basketball behind me -- to use a clichZ, I'd 'hung the sneakers up' and stopped playing," Romanczuk says. His basketball playing in the fall consisted of a few appearances alongside his dad in a rec league at the Abington YMCA. "It was awesome. It was the ultimate -- that's what you want to do, run up and down the court with the kid you whooped on for years to see how much better he is than you now," Doug Romanczuk says, adding, "Don't tell him I said that -- I won't admit to his face that he might be better than me." But after watching restlessly from the Palestra bleachers this year and chafing at the constraints of a desk job, Romanczuk began to wonder if his basketball days were in fact over. "I took a leave of absence from Arthur Andersen about a month ago. I guess I just missed basketball too much," says Romanczuk, who has been working out religiously at the Palestra. "I wanted to give it a shot and see if I could play overseas somewhere and have some fun, just play for a little bit while I'm young and I still can. [I didn't want to be] 29, 30, regretting never having tried playing." According to his dad, watching his former teammates from the stands was hardly easy on Paul. "All ballplayers go through it [when they're done]? He was itchy, he kind of had ants in his pants sitting there because he would see things going on on the court and he'd want to be down there to help them," Doug Romanczuk says. "You could see it in his face, that he missed it and things were running through his mind. He may not have been saying them, but we kind of could tell that he wanted to do something about it." My, how things can change in a year. Last May, after returning from an invite-only, expenses-paid workout in Houston in front of some professional scouts (coincidentally, the same camp Matt Langel will soon be attending), Romanczuk seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea of pursuing a pro career. With degree in hand and a top accounting job lined up, he was ready to enter the workforce. When told that Princeton's Brian Earl had been drafted by the Atlantic City Seagulls of the United States Basketball League, Romanczuk quipped, "[That's] definitely not what I want to be doing." One week from today, however, Romanczuk will be in Atlantic City, working out for the Seagulls. "We'll see how I do from there," says Romanczuk of his upcoming tryout with the Gulls, the USBL team which last summer featured current 76ers guard and former Penn star Ira Bowman. "[After that] I'm probably going to go overseas at this point in time -- I'm willing to play wherever." Well, maybe not wherever, but close to it. Romanczuk is wholeheartedly committed to playing somewhere next year. "I'm not going to a country I never heard of -- I wouldn't play in Iceland for like $10,000 and a bike," he says. But the 22-year-old gets excited when thinking about the possible upside. "Pretty much everybody I've talked to [who played overseas] said it was a great experience, they loved doing it. [Former Penn center] Eric Moore said it's great," Romanczuk says. "You hear some bad stories about people not playing too well and the team sending them home, but it sounds like the good stories outweigh the bad ones." Romanczuk's parents, Doug and Nancy, are both supportive of his decision. "Actually, I was kind of expecting it," Doug says, emphasizing that his son can always return to the world of accounting once his basketball days are over. A CPA who starred at Drexel in the '70s, Doug Romanczuk recounts the story of a 30-something cop who went back to school and joined an accounting firm, ultimately becoming a manager and opening his own firm. "It's never too late to start your career. Unless of course, you're 75, and even then -- if you're still kicking and going, if you want to try something new, it's never too late. [Paul] has plenty of time, he's young. I'm happy he's doing this, because I know that's something I regretted not pursuing myself." Doug Romanczuk was not the only person "expecting it." "I called coach [Fran] Dunphy in mid-January and I said, 'Listen, you might think I'm crazy, but I want to try to play overseas or in the CBA or wherever, just try to play for a little bit,'" Paul says. "And he said, 'No, actually I've been waiting for this call, Paul.' He was very supportive and he's helped me out a little bit." So the basketball sneakers have been taken out of the moth balls. For now, he is no longer Paul Romanczuk, accountant. Once again, while he is still young, he is Paul Romanczuk, basketball player.

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