North Carolina State University Athletics
Q & A With Ilian Evtimov
7/12/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
July 12, 2004
From Annabelle Vaughan: At the age of 21, Ilian Evtimov has lived more places than most people could live in two lifetimes. After a morning of summer school classes, Ilian came to my office (with a bag of ice taped to his knee) recently to share some stories about his interesting life. I've transcribed his answers just as he said them. (You have to imagine hearing them in his thickly accented voice to get the full effect!)
Q: You have lived in many different places. Give me a rundown:
A: "I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, which is the capital. Then I went to Athens, Greece for a year, because my dad played there when I was five. Then he had an offer to play in France, so we moved to a little town called Pont de Beau Voisin (which means Bridge of Good Neighbor). He played there for one year - the level of competition had dropped from what he was used to. He had been on the top level in Europe with the Sabonises and Divacs - they were just coming through when he was in his prime. When he went to France, it was a second division team and he ended up scoring 30-something points per game. The following year, he got another offer in a little town called Esquenoy and he played there and finished as the leading scorer in the league. A year later, we went to Angers and stayed there about two years. My memories kinda start from there on.
"My brother left for the U.S. when we lived there - he was 16, I was 10. Two years later, we moved to a city called Vienne and lived there for four years, maybe five, and I kept playing with different teams as I was growing older. My dad played with two different teams there. Then my brother decided to come back to do his military service between his freshman year at Carolina and his sophomore year at Carolina. He took a year off and redshirted and came back to France, so we moved to Pau. He played with a pro team there and I was playing with the youngsters. Vas went back to the U.S. that season and my parents went back to Vienne. And wow - I left for the U.S. I was 15. They have lived in Vienne to this day."
Q: How about when you got to the U.S.?
A: "I went to Long Island in New York. I lived in a little town called Lynbrook and went to St. Mary's private catholic school. I had to wear gray pants, a white shirt and a tie every day. I lived with a family, Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb. They were real nice people, but I didn't like my situation there. I didn't like New York as a whole. It was not my style. Think about it, I was 15 and had just moved to a different continent. I was away from my parents, barely speaking English. There were six million Julius Hodges there! I didn't like having to dress up every day - it got old. I didn't have that many friends because I didn't speak much English. I was a sophomore and the gym was full of juniors and seniors. It just wasn't a good fit for me.
"I came to visit my brother for his birthday during May and I looked around and I really liked the North Carolina area. It was a lot quieter, a lot less cars, not as much traffic and people were way nicer. I really liked it here. Everywhere we went, everybody was like, 'Hey, Evtimov' talking to my brother and I thought, 'It is cool to be here.' He told me that I could move here if I wanted to. He thought that being in New York first would be a good experience for me because it's hard there and you really grow up there. I did - that one year was really helpful as far as me growing up and maturing.
"I went back to France that summer and played with the French National team cadets. I decided I was going to come here. My brother's girlfriend's parents called a few places and I called a few coaches and I got hooked up with a team in Winston-Salem, Reynolds High School. Her parents live in King, which is near Winston-Salem. As I came here, my brother got engaged. He was supposed to stay here for two more years but decided to leave and play professional basketball, so the whole idea of me being close to him just got thrown out of the window. I came here, lived with her parents and they went to Europe and got married. I lived with his parents-in-law, the Cooks, and it was great - my best year. It was a public school and we had a great team and won the state championship.
"We didn't know that when I got there, but in the season, some person came up to us and said that I couldn't stay in public school more than one year because of the kind of visa I had. I could stay in public school if I wanted to, but I would have to wait two years before I could go to college. Then I had to transfer again, which I really didn't want to do. I went to another private school but the dress code wasn't as severe. I went to Bishop McGuiness and then decided I needed to move to Winston-Salem because I didn't have my driver's license and it was 25 minutes back and forth and it was hard on the family. One of the player's families was willing to take an exchange student, so I moved in with them. That family was called Dr. and Dr. Bogards (they are both doctors).
"Those two families I consider my guardians because they are always there when I need them. Throughout all my surgeries, Dr. Bogard was there and knew what was going on. They treated me really well. The family situation was great - they treated me just like their son."
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Q: You speak four different languages. Talk about how you became multi-lingual:
A: "My first language was Bulgarian. When I was six, we moved to France and I began learning French. Then, going into the sixth grade, I was starting to learn English and I picked Spanish as my other language. When I got to the eighth grade, I had to pick one more, so I picked Italian. I only took Italian for one year. I was speaking Bulgarian at home, French outside and at school and then taking Spanish and English classes starting in sixth grade and then a year of Italian in eighth grade.
Q: How good was your English when you came to the U.S?
A: "I knew the basics, but didn't know all that much. I used to feel like I knew much, but when my brother would come back, he would teach me a lot of stuff. When I came here when I was 15, I realized I didn't know much at all. It used to take me about three hours to do my homework because I had to understand the words that were new to me. I picked up the slang pretty quick, because I was on an AAU team from New York City."
Q: Were you terribly homesick when you moved to the U.S. at such a young age?
A: "Yeah, I was really homesick. The story of my day was get up at 6:45, take the bus at 7:10, be at school at 8 and after practice did not come home until 8:30 or 9:00 at night. It was really demanding. I used to come home and do my homework until 11:30 or 12 and then go to bed. That was my day. It was frustrating. I never had time to myself and I couldn't be a kid. I talked to my parents about twice a week, probably.
"It was really tough for them because I was only 15. My parents today tell me that they find themselves talking sometimes and crying and saying, 'man, if we had to do that again, I would never let my baby go again.' But, I wanted the opportunity."
Q: Tell me about your relationship with your brother.
A: "We would fight so much. Every time my dad would leave, we would start fighting and my mom could not stop us. When Vas left, everything changed. We started becoming a lot closer and he started taking care of me more. I came to visit him when I was 12 for a whole month and went to camp at his high school. We have developed a real brotherly relationship. Not the fighting one, but a real loving one.
"He had a lot of influence on the fact that I went to New York. I wanted to follow in his footsteps and go to New York."
Q: Tell me about your famous (or infamous) bus ride:
"I was about three years old and I asked my dad for 10 cents because I wanted to get some ice cream. He was like, 'OK, sure son. Here, I'll give you 25.' So, I took the money. We lived in an apartment on the third floor in Sofia and I went down to the street behind the building. There was a bus stop there and my mom was on the balcony and she saw me get in the bus and she freaked out and she started yelling and telling my dad, 'Did you not just see our little baby get in the bus?' and they realized I was on the bus.
"They were just in a transitional phase where they had just sold their car and they were going to get a new one the next day. So that specific day they didn't have a car, so they grabbed a neighbor and started following the bus. By the time they caught the bus two miles down the road, they said, 'Was there a little boy on the bus.' and the driver said, 'He got off about two stops ago.' My dad was all freaked out and they turn around and drive back and they see me walking back with the ice cream and the change. It didn't bother me - I was just licking my ice cream."
Q: What is Bulgaria like?
A: "Sofia is real big, like a million people. Bulgaria is getting very like America. Stores everywhere. I was one of those boys that all I used to do was play outside and find out about the world. There is a lot of snow during the winter and it gets really hot during the summer.
Q: When you think about American food, you think about fried chicken and apple pie. What is the typical Bulgarian food?
A: "You think about yogurt. That sounds like Greek food Our cultures are very close to the greek one, except for the alphabet and the language are different. Feta cheese is definitely Bulgarian. Salads with tomatoes and cucumbers and onions - that is Bulgarian food.
"My grandma used to make Banista, which was like bread layered with feta cheese. It was so good. And my brother used to sprinkle feta cheese on french fries."
Q: When you moved to the U.S., what was the biggest difference?
A: "I will always remember this. When I first got here, I went to Burger King. I didn't know about Burger King. All I knew about these fast food places was that everybody could access them really easily and just be there like it was nothing. In Europe, that was a treat. They would say that was a nice restaurant. I thought, 'Wow, I really like that!'"
Q: Tell me about a day in your life in Bulgaria.
A: "During the summer when we go back to Bulgaria, we will go see my grandfather . His name is the same as my brother's, Vassil, but I called him Deido, which means grandfather. We would go to see him and go fishing. At 5:00 in the morning, my brother would wake me up and we would get the stuff in the car, get bread, tomatoes, salami and cheese. In America they bring the grill and the chicken and the steaks. Over there, we do it old school.
"We would take the worst roads possible and finally get there around 6:15 and the sun is just coming up. We throw our fishing poles and you don't hear anything. The water is not even moving. It's perfect. There would usually be about four or five of us and my best memories include my uncle and my cousin. I would get hungry and put the blanket on the grass and have a picnic and watch my pole. My brother is walking around the lake trying to find the hot spots. If it looked like rain, my uncle would build a little shelter with sticks and leaves and stuff. We would get under it, but my brother would still be out in the rain, trying to catch fish.
"We usually would catch a lot. About 5 or 6 o'clock, my dad would come and go and swim and we would leave about 8:00 - exhausted. Then we get home and give the fish to Deido. His thing is to clean the fish. All the cats around the neighborhood would come. That is a typical day at my grandparents."
Q: Where did you get the nickname, Shoush?
A: "'Cute little thing?' My mom used to call me that because when I was a young baby, I was very little compared to my dad and my brother. I used to cry all the time too. I was a whiny baby.
"'Vasco' is my brother's nickname. They used to call him 'Vasco Ketsa', which meant 'Vasco the Big Shoe.' He wears a size 17."
