By Gary Phillips

Sandro Mamukelashvili was nine years old and in Chicago when the bombs started to drop. He had arrived in the Windy City with his 13-year-old brother, David, in late July 2008. It was by pure coincidence that the siblings came to America just days before the Russo-Georgian War broke out.

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Natives of Georgia, the former Soviet republic, the boys were 5,941 miles away when the Russians invaded their homeland. The first European war of the 21^st century came without much warning. Had it not been for a planned trip to see his aunt, Eteri Andjaparidze, who knows how Sandro’s journey would have turned out? “A lot of things could’ve went wrong,” says Sandro, a freshman forward at Seton Hall. “I could not even be here.”

Luckily for Sandro and David, both are American citizens. They grew up in Georgia but were born in New York. Their U.S. passports afforded them the opportunity to travel back and forth frequently as kids. The trip to Chicago was just another vacation spent abroad with Aunt Eteri.

Andjaparidze remembers how the U.S. embassy in Georgia called her nephew’s parents, Zurab and Marianna, looking for the siblings when the fighting started. The embassy was going to attempt an evacuation, but the boys were already safe. Their aunt was keeping them busy.

Rather than worry about war, Sandro was distracted by basketball. He had loved the sport ever since he learned that his grandmother, Ira Gabashvili, was the captain of the Georgian women’s national team. That was back when the country was still under Soviet rule. Mamukelashvili idolized his grandmother. He wanted to be just like her, so he practiced religiously. “Sandro has this very clear basketball ability [and has from] an early age,” Andjaparidze says. “He was dreaming like every kid who plays basketball. It’s in his genes.”

The aunt did everything she could to further her nephew’s development that summer, enrolling him in camps at the Chicago Bulls’ facility on the outskirts of the city. Sandro knew little of what was happening back home. The combat was concentrated mostly away from Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi, the Mamukelashvilis’ home. His parents stayed safe, and the family was fortunate not to lose anyone close. As far as Sandro knew, it was just a typical summer.

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“The boys knew that their home was not ruined. They were going back home to see their parents. They were going back to school – that was it,” says Andjaparidze, now a NYU professor living in Manhattan. “They didn’t have any fear. They didn’t have any concern of going back home. Like any kid, they were sorry the summer was over.”

When the brothers returned home in September 2008, Mamukelashvili saw the damage for the first time. He watched news reports documenting who died and was shown pictures of tanks. He imagined being there for the war. “When something does not directly touch you it’s hard to comprehend,” says David, a teacher at The Patrick School in Hillside, N.J. “I don’t think my brother and I were really understanding of what was happening at the time because we were kids, because we were not there.”

The Russo-Georgian conflict lasted just five days, but Georgian villages were ravaged and buildings destroyed. More than 150 members of the Georgian Armed Forces were killed, and almost 1,000 were injured. There were more than 200 civilian casualties, and tens of thousands became refugees.

“In Georgia, you must go to war if they call you. It’s not like, I don’t want to go to war – you must go to war,” Sandro says. “These young guys who never held a gun in their hands tried to defend their country.”

Sandro has spent a great deal of time away from his home country. Desiring more competition than Georgia’s national teams could offer, he played high school basketball in Italy. He speaks four languages – Italian, Georgian, Russian and English. After two years there, he came back to the U.S. to play at Montverde (Fla.) Academy for his senior season.

Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard is impressed with Mamukelashvili’s makeup as much as his skill set. “The one really cool thing about Sandro is, because he’s a much more mature kid because of how he’s come here, I think he gets along with everyone really well,” Willard says. “That’s something that’s helped him tremendously in his transition.”

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When Mamukelashvili got to campus, he shared his story of avoiding war. That helped him bond with his new teammates. “He’s definitely a tough kid,” Pirates point guard Khadeen Carrington says. “It says a lot that he’s comfortable enough with us to tell us his past.”

Now 18, the 6-foot-10, 230-pound Mamukelashvili is working to establish himself as a role player at Seton Hall, backing up a frontcourt led by Angel Delgado, Ismael Sanogo and Mike Nzei. Mamukelashvili played a combined 31 minutes in the Pirates’ first two games, totaling 10 points, seven rebounds and a block in weekend wins over Farleigh Dickinson and Monmouth.

While his brother and aunt are nearby – they’ll be regulars at Seton Hall games – his mom and dad remain half a world away. Mamukelashvili returned to Georgia over the summer, but before that he had not been home in two years. He hopes to visit again once school is out.

Mamukelashvili has traveled far and seen much during his journey from Georgia to Seton Hall. It is a challenge to be so far away from home, but he knows why he is here. “I had this dream to go play professional basketball since I was really young,” he says. “As long as I chase my dream, I do something positive, I do something to make my family proud, it’s really easy.”

(Top photo: Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY)