FRENCH CONNECTION
Montreal’s Chartouny adjusting to life away from home
LAST season, Joseph Chartouny helped Fordham secure its f irst winning record in nine years. He led all freshmen in the nation in assists, and was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year.
But a transition that looked seamless was a well-disguised struggle. Adjusting to life in The Bronx was far more difficult than the Montreal native expected.
“I don’t know how I did what I did,” Chartouny said of his debut season. “It was pretty hard being far from home, being far from family, having another language, too. I had to adapt to all of that and it was really hard.
“I don’t feel pressure now, but last year, when I was shooting, it was hard. When I went up for a layup, I was overthinking. This year it’s just me playing. I’m just Joseph playing basketball. That’s the motto this year: Just be Joseph.”
Who is Joseph? Well, the answer depends on who is surrounding him, Chartouny said. In America, he’s labeled a Canadian. In Quebec, he’s considered Lebanese.
At the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, Chartouny’s parents and members of their extended family moved to Montreal, where Chartouny was later born and raised. Though his first language is French, he only speaks Arabic at home, and frequently returns to Lebanon — where he plays for the senior national team — to visit family that remains there.
“My parents moved so we could have a better life,” Chartouny said.
In hockey-mad Montreal, Chartouny grew up loving basketball — specifically the San Antonio Spurs because of their selfless playing style and star-studded international roster — and soccer, splitting time between the two sports before eventually determining the former could provide a greater future.
At Collège Jean-De-Brébeuf, he joined future Rams teammate Nemanja Zarkovic to win multiple Provincial titles together, with Chartouny becoming ranked as high as the fourth-best recruit in Canada.
“Joe’s always been a naturally talented player and he’s always made his teammates better,” Zarkovic said. “He helps everybody. He facilitates everything. He understands what coaches want, and defensively, he has an anticipation and a feel that I’ve never seen in anyone else. He reads everything a couple plays in advance. “People follow him. They trust him.” When you meet Chartouny, you understand how the attachment develops. He is engaging and polite and forthright, quick to laugh and constantly sifting through his trilingual vocabulary for the best way to connect with those who surround him.
“He’s a very funny guy, very charismatic,” Zar- kovic said. “He understands people. He has a feel for emotions and other people’s thoughts. He’s just very good with people and that makes him such a good player and teammate because guys trust him, they have fun with him, they can talk to him.”
Chartouny first committed to former coach Tom Pecora, scoring 29 points against the Rams with his AAU team when Fordham went to Canada on its 2014 foreign trip. When coach Jeff Neubauer took over, he saw the same player capable of bringing the long-suffering program back to relevance.
“He really wants to be successful. He’s a driven guy,” Neubauer said. “He’s so interesting. He’s a really thoughtful person. He’s gonna be a really successful guy. … When you look at the difference between someone who is really successful on the court and someone who doesn’t quite get there, it’s a big difference, the mental characteristics. It goes a long, long way.”
Entering Saturday’s game at Harvard — to be played on Chartouny’s 22nd birthday with roughly 15 family members coming from Quebec to attend — he ranks second in the nation in steals (3.6) and 10th in assists (6.6). The star of an aggressive defense, Chartouny is averaging 12.6 points on 49.3 percent shooting from the field after shooting just 37 percent last season.
Now, campus is as comfortable as Quebec. Now, success makes sense to him.
“I’m a totally different guy right now,” Chartouny said. “I’ve always found ways in my life to adapt to any situation. I’m not the fastest guy on the team, I’m not the quickest guy, but I can really read what’s happening. I think I have a good IQ.
“And freshman to sophomore year, that’s when you get the biggest jump.”