You can call me Al

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If this article doesn't make you smile, then somthing is wrong with you.

Nice-guy Beye having time of his life in Bozeman

By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Editor

OK, so Alioune Beye doesn't cut the kind of figure that'll get lost on Main Street in Bozeman.

At 6-foot-11, he's as tall as anybody in town.

At 190 pounds sopping wet - about 30 more than he carried when he arrived in the United States two years ago - he's so rail-thin he elicits comparisons to another African of some renown, one Manute Bol.

But his physique alone and spot on the Montana State basketball roster doesn't fully explain his magnetism.

Look closer, to his infectious smile, the one that instantly says "Hello, I'm Alioune Beye ... how are you today?" without so much as a word.

Small wonder that MSU's junior center from Dakar, Senegal, can't walk a city block without someone calling his name or summoning him for conversation.

"Everybody loves me around here," he says with wide-eyed marvel. "That really shocked me about Bozeman. People introduce themselves to me all the time. I have about a thousand friends here!"

And that's just in southwest Montana.

He readily lists his Senegalese friends playing ball around the United States and certainly left his mark at Eastern Oklahoma State College, where he played for current MSU assistant Johnny Brown the past two years.

"Everybody at Eastern loved him," Brown said. "There was not a soul on campus who didn't like Al."

All this, and he hasn't even officially scored a basket for the Bobcats, for whom he'll start again at 7 tonight in an exhibition game against Calgary.

Well, what's not to like?

Beye is personable, bright and plays with appealing emotion. Combine that with a knack for blocking shots, rebounding and running the floor, and you've got the recipe for a two-year fan favorite.

Indeed, if there's anything not to like, at least from the standpoint of a coach wanting a gnarly inside presence, it's that Beye appears too congenial.

"Oh yeah," he acknowledged with a laugh. "Even the president of my junior college in Oklahoma told me I'm too nice."

Never fear, Beye is quick to add, allaying any fears that between his body and his persona, he's too soft to deal with the notorious wide bodies who throw their weight around in the Big Sky Conference paint.

He played 29 games last year at Eastern Oklahoma before suffering any injury, surviving a grind that Brown says is more arduous than a Division I season.

Beye said he's occasionally bothered by shin splits, but those were due to his flat feet, his rapid growth upward in his late teens and his rapid growth outward at Eastern Oklahoma.

"I just have to be tough mentally and physically," he said, shrugging.

That's never been an issue for Beye, the son of a former Senegalese military man and restaurant manager in a household that speaks French.

He developed his athleticism on the soccer fields of Dakar until he was 15, when he turned to basketball and developed as a perimeter player. After growing four inches in a year when he was 17, he moved inside and learned under a coach who taught him rudimentary skills and also had connections in the States.

Upon graduating from high school, he didn't take the Scholastic Aptitude Test because he went to law school in Senegal.

Once Beye decided seven years was too long to wait for a law degree, he returned to basketball. He had to attend a JC because he hadn't taken his SAT.

Eastern Oklahoma took him sight unseen based on references who had earned credibility over the years.

Good thing, too, because when Brown first laid eyes on Beye, he'd wondered if he'd been sold a bill of goods.

Think he's thin now? A 5-year-old lodgepole pine had more girth than Beye then.

"They said he was going to be bigger than that," Brown said.

But Beye could run, had remarkable body control and showed a propensity to learn.

Two seasons later, he visited MSU and San Jose State.

"I came up here for 48 hours and I liked it," Beye said.

The coaches like his ability to disrupt an opposing offense with his condor-like arms and mobility. Beye says he likes nothing better than to block shots, followed closely by dunking off an alley-oop at the end of a fast break.

He has learned to deal with physical players by going against 7-foot Matt Towsley and 6-10 Ted Morris in practice. Meanwhile, those two have learned to deal with an agile opponent.

"Physically they almost beat him to a pulp," Brown said. "But he gives them fits."

Either way, Beye is having the time of his life. He's considering living here after graduating with a degree in accounting.

"People have opened up to me here," he said. "They come over to my house and hang out.

"It's perfect to live here."