Ameziane A 'Stand-Up' Guy

Sami Ameziane had heard all the stories. He'd seen all the movies. They said the same thing - America was a land for new opportunity; a land where dreams are made and destiny is fulfilled.

But Ameziane wasn't sold. Before he came to UConn as a foreign exchange student, he didn't expect to accomplish much in America. Maybe brush up on his English, meet some new people, but nothing big.

That all changed in the instant Ameziane planted his foot on American soil.

"I felt like a new man. I felt it was a land where people of all around the world have built new lives. I could just feel it in the air," Ameziane said. "In America, there is an enthusiasm that lacks in Europe, a positive sense that makes you feel you can do it. It's not a myth when they say 'everything is possible' in America."

And for Ameziane, nearly everything that was possible happened.

The 24-year-old French exchange student never intended to walk-on to the UConn basketball team. But he did. He never expected to return to his home country and be laughed at by thousands of people, especially after completing a season as the back-up point guard of the Huskies. But that also happened.

And somehow, Ameziane relished the experience. He encouraged the laughter. He even embraced it.

After all, what comedian wouldn't? The former French class teacher's assistant turned basketball walk-on has become a stand-up comic, and as odd as it sounds, no one is surprised.

"Sami's got a great sense of humor. He has a way with words," said Elaine Dalmolin, a UConn French professor.

"He was a stand-up comedian when he was with us," joked UConn assistant coach George Blaney.

A Long, Strange Road

A legendary basketball player in Saint-Denis, France, Ameziane took his sweet-shooting stroke and unflappable confidence to Guyer Gym when he arrived at UConn to study abroad. Mostly playing basketball for fun at this point, Ameziane's main focus was finishing up his business degree. He never strongly considered walking onto the team when he signed up to come to Storrs.

"If I had said to people in France that I wanted to play with the Huskies, nobody would have thought that it could have been possible," Ameziane said. "When I was in France, the general pessimism made me forget most of my dreams."

Though he doubted himself, Ameziane had a few onlookers who were impressed with what they saw. One of which was assistant coach and former walk-on Justin Evanovich.

"Sami was only about 5-foot-11, but he was very strong and fast. I played with him a few times and you could tell that he had incredible skill," Evanovich said. "There's nothing we [the coaches] can do before open tryouts, but I made sure he was well aware of that day. I told coach Blaney that he was someone we should pay a little more special attention to."

Evanovich planted the seed in Ameziane's head, but it was a local barber who turned the distant thought of becoming a Husky into a reality. Holly Upton, the owner of a small barbershop in Storrs Plaza, had a few connections to the UConn basketball program atypical of an ordinary hairdresser. Among Upton's clients was UConn biology professor and basketball tutor Ted "Doc" Taigen. When Ameziane started to tell Upton about his basketball career in France, she insisted that he meet up with Taigen to discuss trying out for the team. She set up an appointment at Gampel Pavilion for Ameziane to talk with Taigen immediately after the haircut.

Taigen, who knew all of the coaches and could talk up Ameziane, was skeptical upon first glance of the 5-foot-11 Frenchman.

"When we met, he saw a 'tiny brown Pikachu' arriving and did not think I was a basketball player," Ameziane said. "He told me I should look at the team practicing first and come back later."

Ameziane didn't take Taigen's advice, however. He went directly to the basketball office to briefly speak with an assistant coach about the tryouts. Soon after, it occurred to Ameziane that Upton had a few more connections to the team than she initially revealed. His conversation with the assistant coach came to an immediate halt when Jim Calhoun - hair clean-cut and trimmed perfectly - walked into the room and invited the shell-shocked point guard into his office.

Ameziane couldn't believe what was happening. He gazed up at wall, which was littered with pictures of UConn alumni in the NBA. He shifted his eyes to the other side of the room, where all of Calhoun's trophies rested. Still in awe, Ameziane finally mustered up the voice to describe his playing experience to Calhoun, who informed him the team needed a back-up because freshman A.J. Price was out for the season with a brain hemorrhage. Calhoun promptly asked Ameziane to a tryout in the first practice of the season, where the fleet-footed point guard did not disappoint.

"We saw him workout and he could really handle the ball. He had great energy," Blaney said. "When you're looking for players to work against in practice, someone who can really handle the ball and be a great point guard is a rare commodity."

Normally under Calhoun, walk-ons have to spend one year on the practice squad before receiving a game jersey, but in just three hours of practice, Ameziane did enough to buck that trend.

"I had a good practice and at the end, he told me that he was proud to welcome me in the team," Ameziane said. "I was shocked. I remember that I could not sleep that night. It was terrific."

"I remember watching UConn versus Georgia Tech [in the 2004 national championship game] on TV in France and a year later, I was a Husky. That's why I like America, anything can happen!"

Ameziane's infectious sense of humor and friendliness were on display wherever he went, whether it was in the classroom or on the basketball court.

As a student, his writing always gravitated towards the funny side, according to Dalmolin.

As a teacher's assistant, he often incorporated crazy, meaningless sentences for the students to figure out because he thought having fun was the best way to learn a foreign language.

And as a player, Ameziane always came to practice with a smile sewn onto his face.

"I don't remember one day in which he had a negative or an upset demeanour. He was always upbeat and positive," Evanovich said. "He had a great personality and loved every second of the idea that he was a part of this program."

Ameziane's high spirits and incredible energy took him from a position he described as "the bench of the bench of the benchwarmers" to one that saw meaningful minutes in Big East competition.

When Marcus Williams struggled with a late-season ankle injury and freshman Antonio Kellogg struggled with just about everything, Calhoun turned to Ameziane to give the team spot minutes at point guard. Leading a team that included blue-chip recruits Rudy Gay, Charlie Villanueva, Rashad Anderson, Denham Brown, and Hilton Armstrong was a daunting task at first, but it didn't take long for Ameziane's confidence and dynamic personality to win over his teammates. Within a few weeks, he was joking around with the team as if he'd been a four-year starter.

"The guys were big jokers," Ameziane said. "I used to have some good battles with Marcus Williams, AJ Price, and Ryan Thompson when we came back in the bus from the games."

While some of his teammates enjoyed pranking one another to get laughs, Ameziane never sunk to that level. Despite the language barrier, his quick wit and smart humor made him one of the most entertaining characters on a squad that certainly didn't lack personality.

"I've always been more of a jokester than a prankster," Ameziane said. "I believe in the strength of the word in any situation."

Gifted With Words

Over the years, words - not step-back jumpshots or crossover dribbles - have proved to be Ameziane's greatest gift.

"For a class, he had to write a film scenario that he showed me and I believe they made a movie out of it," Dalmolin said. "He wrote comedy, he wrote poetry, he wrote film scenario, he was multi-talented. He clearly had a knack for it."

Ameziane's writing skills, combined with his love for performing - he took several theatre classes in France - were all the ingredients he needed to excel as a comedian. Well, almost.

Ameziane wasn't aware of stand-up comedy until he came over to the United States because it didn't exist in France until very recently. While at UConn, he became captivated with the energy and delivery of American comics and realized that stand-up comedy was something he wanted to pursue. By studying a variety of comedians, Ameziane familiarized himself with the format and style that has made comedy a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States.

"American comics are so talented that I could not list all of them, but I really like Dave Chappelle, Katt Williams, Bernie Mac, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Eddie Izzard and George W. Bush - just kidding," Ameziane joked. "I also like Chris Rock, who I met on a street in New York City once. But I have my own style."

And so far, Ameziane's style has been successful. He is set to sign a contract with a big production company that will organize his shows in France and also plans on visiting the United States to play at a New York City comedy club owned by Def Jam comic Chris "Smokey" Jones.

While Jones and many others in the business focus on the differences in white and black culture, the upstart Ameziane takes that idea a step further. Most of his material is situational comedy based on comparing American, African-American, French and Algerian culture. According to Dalmolin, who has watched Ameziane's routine on the Internet, many of his jokes have to do with the fact that he is of Algerian descent.

"My parents are Algerian, a country in North Africa, they're Arabic," Ameziane said in one joke. "Physically, I don't look Arabic because I have blue eyes. I got them from my father. My mother has black eyes. She got them from my father too!"

Between playing for the Algerian national team, playing against superior competition in France and touring the U.S. while playing for UConn, basketball has served as an avenue to teach Ameziane about the many cultures that he now incorporates into his act. But perhaps more importantly, he said playing the sport at such a high level prepared him for the rush of emotion that comes with performing on stage.

"[Telling a good joke] is the same kind of feeling when you make a good assist to a teammate," Ameziane said. "And when you're not funny, it's the same feeling when you turn the ball over that becomes an assist on a buzzer-beater for the other team."

Because basketball has always been a huge part of his life, Ameziane isn't shy about interjecting some round-ball humor to spice up his routine.

"I have a lot of basketball jokes, but the problem is French people don't really care about basketball, whereas in the U.S. it's big stuff," Ameziane said.

He hopes his basketball jokes, which will flourish in America, won't have to wait much longer until they are tested out. Ameziane plans on making a return to the nation that untapped his wildest dreams and made them come true. He dreams of touring the country and performing a routine based entirely on American and French culture because he wants to teach the world about the common values and principles the two share. Ameziane's ultimate goal, however, is to conclude that tour in the building that first gave him the hope to follow his dreams - Gampel Pavilion.

"At UConn, I met people who gave me a lot, who opened their hearts to help me build myself," Ameziane said. "There's not a single day when I don't think what a great experience it was. God bless America!"

Contact Kevin Duffy at Kevin.R.Duffy@UConn.edu.