The best German import since Mercedes

Jan Fikiel endeared himself to his teammates and Penn fans last season in a way that few freshman subs who play 10 minutes per game ever have.

Maybe it's his silky smooth jumpshot, which Penn sophomore guard Tim Begley calls the "nicest 15-foot jump shot I've ever seen."

Or perhaps it's that 14th-year Penn coach Fran Dunphy says, "Jan made [the jump] to college basketball as quickly as anyone I've ever had."

Or it could just be that everybody at the University seems to know -- or at the very least recognize -- the 6-foot-10 center.

"I think you can ask anyone on campus," Begley said. "They see a big, black puff jacket coming down Locust Walk with a black [hooded sweatshirt] on, sticking up about 7-feet tall, and they know it's Fikiel coming down the street."

Whatever the reason, Jan Fikiel made his mark on and off the court last year. And though Fikiel may have arrived in a big way, his best basketball days have yet to do the same.

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Inspired by his father, Christoph, who played professional basketball in both Poland and Germany, Jan fell in love with the hardwood as a youngster in Ulm, Germany.

Fikiel recalls that while his fellow schoolmates celebrated the World Cup victory of West Germany's national soccer team in 1990 -- the West Germans defeated Argentina to capture the Cup -- his most fond international sports memory of the early 1990s had nothing to do with soccer.

Rather, he most vividly revels in another triumph -- the Germans' 1993 victory in the European basketball championships, over heavily-favored Russia.

"It was a pretty big boost when Germany won the European championship for basketball," Fikiel said. "Afterwards, it was obvious that there were more and more young guys playing basketball."

While German-born NBA star Detlef Schrempf was the early '90s poster boy for German basketball-playing youths, Fikiel turned to a different source for inspiration on the court -- his father.

"I always watched [my dad] play," said Fikiel, whose father is half an inch taller than he is. "I went to all the home games and I really looked up to him."

Jan would graduate from pure spectator to basketball star at eight years of age, when he began playing on a local club team.

Around the same time, he also began obsessing over the NBA, trying to get every bit of information about the league that he could find.

"I began playing so young, so basketball's really been with me my entire life," Fikiel said. "I also always watched the NBA late at night and sometimes during the weekends.

"I always followed it in newspaper, magazines, and anything else I could read."

Soon Fikiel entered high school as a mobile, inspired and skinny big man with a soft jump shot and above-average handles.

And after two years of club basketball, Fikiel was entertaining dreams of pursuing a potential post-high school professional career in Europe. That was before he made a critical choice to spend his junior year on an exchange program in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"A bunch of my friends had been [at Westminster Academy] before or were planning to do it in the same year that I went," Fikiel said. "I talked it over with my family, but it was only supposed to be for one year."

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Fikiel's early days at Westminster Academy weren't all that easy.

Though he was thriving on the basketball court, Fikiel had considerable trouble adjusting to Fort Lauderdale -- a place that differed drastically from his village of 10,000 back home.

"I definitely needed some time to adjust to the American culture," Fikiel said. "Americans are so much more open towards you.

"The whole language thing, too, was kind of tough in the beginning."

Things would get easier for Fikiel, as he grew closer with his new teammates at Westminster.

"It definitely helped to be on the basketball team in high school," Fikiel said. "You really got close to them. After a couple months, it got better and I started making a lot of friends."

It also helped that Fikiel was dominating the competition on the basketball court.

Though his team fell short of the state finals in his first year, Fikiel hardly came away empty-handed when it came time for postseason awards.

He was named first team All-County, All-Conference and second team All-State.

Amidst all the hoopla, however, Fikiel was still supposed to be headed back to Germany for his senior year of high school.

It was a trip he would never make.

"My coach [Buddy Presley] told me that if I kept working hard, between my junior and senior year that I'd have a chance to play college basketball," Fikiel said.

After talking it over with his parents, Fikiel was back on campus in the fall, and soon thereafter joined the Westminster basketball team for his senior season.

Again Fikiel starred, and this time, his team did as well, as the Lions made it to the Class 3A state finals.

But there they met their match in the form of Florida Air Academy. Though Fikiel scored 15 points, Westminster fell, 56-51.

Fikiel would do himself one better in his senior year's postseason awards, earning a spot on the All-State first-team to go along with repeat first-team All-Conference and All-County honors.

All the way through Fikiel's title run, the collegiate basketball scouts took notice.

Though he ultimately chose Penn, American University and Fairfield University also actively sought the rising German almost 7-footer.

But Penn's recruiting efforts, led by assistant coach David Duke, would win out.

"Penn has always had a good program and we play big teams, so the competition is really good" Fikiel said. "And the academics just speak for themselves. Wharton School of Business is just one of the best business school in the U.S.

"It wasn't really a hard decision to make."

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Fikiel soon would find out that he was brought in by Penn as one of a trio of big men, including Conor Tolan and Namier Majette.

Ironically, the group which would be called the "21-feet of freshmen," actually included just one true seven-footer (Tolan).

Other freshmen on the team included Begley, a highly-touted shooting guard from New Jersey and a sweet-shooting guard from Georgia, Pat Lang.

The 6-foot-5 Begley was the one who got the biggest kick out of the size of the new recruits.

"With Jan coming in with the other freshmen, we had those 21-feet of freshmen," Begley said. "I felt kind of small rolling around with those guys.

"They're three of the biggest kids I've ever seen in my life, and all of a sudden, they're my new roll dogs."

While Fikiel seemed to have little trouble fitting into the social scene at Penn -- he would soon earn the nickname the "Hurricane" for his off-the-court charm -- on the court, he was having a tougher time.

"There is such a big difference between high school and college basketball," Fikiel said. "To adjust to the level of Penn basketball was pretty tough at the beginning.

"I had some trouble finding my rhythm in practice because everyone is just so big and so fast."

Still, there were other facets of Fikiel's game that impressed his teammates from day one.

"He really knows how to play the game," Penn point guard Andrew Toole said. "I think he's similar to a lot of European guys in that he's tall, but he's also very skilled on the perimeter. He understands the game really well."

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The initial plan for Fikiel was to keep him on the bench during his freshman year, while grooming him to eventually play center for Penn.

That was before the Quakers' top center, Adam Chubb, suffered a stress fracture in preseason practice that would sideline him for the first six games.

Ready or not, Fikiel was thrust into the spotlight in the Quakers' season opener against Georgia Tech on Nov. 19, 2001.

As the only freshman aside from starting guard Begley to play, Fikiel scored one point in five minutes in Penn's 79-74 win.

"I thought it was just going to be a total learning experience for him and yet, early on, we saw some things that tweaked us greatly," Dunphy said. "We had Adam Chubb get hurt early on, and that gave Jan more of an opportunity to play right away."

Following the Georgia Tech game, Fikiel's play was a bit spotty in the early going. After scoring six points against then-No. 2 Illinois in his second collegiate game and chipping in with four against Eastern Illinois in his third, Fikiel went scoreless for his next five games before draining a single free throw against St. Joseph's.

"In the beginning, you could tell that I was just kind of tentative," Fikiel said. "But, I knew that I had to give everything in order to play at this level."

Fikiel's season would begin to make a turn for the better in Penn's Ivy opener at Dartmouth on Jan. 11, 2002. The center scored eight points on that night and also added three rebounds in 13 minutes of play.

Though Penn would lose the following night at Harvard, Fikiel again played well, dropping in four points in 12 minutes.

"He just has a knack for knowing how to play," Dunphy said. "And I think that's a big a part of his game as there is."

As the Ivy season wore on, Fikiel would emerge as a pivotal Penn sub, helping the Quakers emerge from a 2-3 start.

As Fikiel blossomed, he also grew more attached-- so to speak -- to two elements of Penn life: playing in the Palestra and his black hooded Penn basketball sweatshirt.

"At first [the Palestra] can be kind of intimidating because the acoustics are amazing and it gets so loud," Fikiel said. "But, then it becomes kind of fun, because it gets you so fired up."

As for the sweatshirt, which Begley called the center's trademark, Fikiel would only admit to having a predilection for the team sweats.

"I kind of wore it a lot, I'm not going to lie," Fikiel said. "Everyone was kind of wearing them around, but I guess I wore them a little too often."

The sweatshirting-loving Fikiel would save his best for Penn's final Ivy game of the season -- the March 9 playoff game against Yale at Lafayette.

He poured in eight points, and played one of his best overall games of the season in helping Penn advance to the NCAA tournament.

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Basketball at Penn seems so much easier for Fikiel this season, now that he has a year under his belt at Penn.

He has the burden lifted of being a freshman on a veteran squad -- "it's fun because you're not the one that gets ripped on anymore," he said -- and has the chance to work on some more critical aspects of his game.

While Fikiel -- who, embarrassingly enough went 1 for 2 on dunks last season -- doesn't harbor any illusions of revolutionizing his dunking game.

"Of course, I would like to have a [vertical jump] like Ugonna [Onyekwe] and Koko [Archibong]," he does have a plan to work on certain other "hair-raising elements."

"I'm trying to grow my hair out this year," Fikiel said. "We'll see how it goes. I had really short hair last year and when I was really young, I had long hair. When I was 12, I had the flattop, the Deltef Schrempf haircut. And now I want to try it longer."

Though the new-do may not necessarily transform Fikiel from the 2.9 points per game scorer he was a year ago into a dominant big man, it should certainly ensure that Fikiel wears his black hood less.

So don't be confused. By midseason, that 7-foot long-haired blond guy walking in his puffy jacket down Locust Walk -- that's Jan Fikiel.

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