Tim Lyle now knows a few words of Arabic, and most of those words deal with food, since the former JMU basketball star shared several meals with Iraqis this past summer. His list includes orange, salt, pepper, not to mention "my darling" and "father of the mustache," because many Iraqi men either have one or wish they did.

Lyle, through a sports exchange program, joined an Iraqi basketball team, Al Hilla, for a tournament in Damascus, Syria, last summer. He was just one of two Americans on the team, and the politics of war did not stop his bonding with his new teammates. "They said they would honor us as basketball players, which is what they did," says Lyle, over a plate of pancakes at a Harrisonburg restaurant near the Convo this past August.

He flew to Beirut, Lebanon, and then drove with the other American player to Damascus for four games against teams from Lebanon, Jordan, Iran and Syria. The trip by road was delayed a day due to fighting in Iraq.

Was Lyle, who grew up in small Poca, W.Va., scared about traveling to one of the most hostile regions in the world? "Not really. It was exciting. I wasn't worried," says Lyle, an all-academic player in the Colonial Athletic Association in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

So what did the Iraqi players think of America and its recent invasion of their country?

"They weren't very happy about (the war). They didn't like (President) Bush, which is not surprising since the Iraqi media is biased," Lyle says. "None of them liked Saddam. They were happy to see him go. … In general, they like American people, but think (our) government is corrupt."

Lyle's trip to the Middle East was just one of many sojourns he has taken in the past year. He spent the 2003-04 basketball season playing for a pro team (Malbas Oresund) in Sweden, where he was third in the league in scoring with an average of 26.4 points per game in 31 outings. He also averaged 8.3 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1 steal per game, and was named Second-Team All-Sweden by www.eurobasket.com.

After the trip to Syria, he came home for a few months before joining a team of American basketball players for a two-week tour of China, after six days of training in Denver. His teammates, through Global Sports Partners, included players from such programs as Rice, Colorado State, Northern Colorado and Purdue. Lyle's team was 6-1 in seven games in China during an eight-city trip. While he was there, he traded one of his No. 50 JMU practice uniforms and a USA soccer jersey for the uniform of a player from the Chinese junior national team.

But that was not the end of his 2004 pilgrimage. This past August, he left for Switzerland, where the 6-foot-8 baller is playing as a pro. "It is real neat, the opportunity I have been given. I am real thankful for that," he says.

Lyle averaged 5.6 points and 4.4 rebounds per game in 1999-2000, when the Dukes were 20-9 and shared first place in the CAA regular season. One of the assistant coaches for the Dukes that year was Dean Keener, now JMU head coach. "Tim is a terrific person and one of the hardest workers I have been around," Keener wrote. "He always gave maximum effort in everything he did. He has always been a goal-oriented person."

Lyle averaged 11.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game in 2000-01, and 7.3 and 3.9 in 2001-02, and he won the Dean Ehlers Leadership Award (named for the former JMU athletics director) from the CAA in 2002.

Lyle had a grade-point average around 3.7, and the Ehlers award "embodies the highest standards of leadership, integrity and sportsmanship through his academic and athletic achievement," Keener says.

How long does Lyle plan to play overseas? "I am just taking it one year at a time," says Lyle, a committed Christian who was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ at JMU. "I am praying that God will direct my steps. It is an opportunity [overseas] in which I can be an ambassador for Jesus."

-- David Driver