Ibrahim Shams (Cairo, Egypt/Manor House) listened helplessly to his family's dispatches from Cairo last year as unrest erupted near home.

Gunmen roaming unpoliced streets. Prisoners escaping. His father and others forced to protect their neighborhood once night fell.

But the Fairleigh Dickinson University tennis player wasn't alone, even if he was 5,600 miles away in Hackensack. That's because nearly all his teammates know what it's like to be far from home.

Like him, seven were born on another continent and another hails from the Caribbean.

"It was nice that a lot of people asked me what was going on," Shams said. "So sometimes I would share."

All nine men and six of the seven women on the FDU tennis rosters were born on foreign soil. But they came together as champions, with both squads capturing NEC titles to advance to this weekend's NCAA tournament.

They each face Virginia in Charlottesville in the first round – the women Friday and the men Saturday.

They have come from four different continents and a host of countries to get there.

Egypt. South Africa. Russia. Germany. Latvia. Brazil. And beyond.

And they each took their own road to Hackensack.

A recruiting service placing international student-athletes in American colleges. A coach in their homeland with connections. A recommendation from another college coach after his program was disbanded.

Some did not have the opportunity to visit FDU or even meet coach Ira Miller in person before school began.

For them it was a leap of faith, flying to a place they had never been to play for someone they had never met.

"It was a risk," said Arvis Berzins (Adazi, Latvia/Riga Language School), a freshman from Latvia and the NEC Player and Rookie of the Year. "A lot of my friends have transferred out the first year because they didn't like their team, their coach or the area.

"But I like everything here. It was a risk I had to take."

Miller – the conference's coach of the year for both teams — did not recruit many of his players in the conventional sense. In fact, many came to him.

Berzins found FDU on his own, emailing Miller without introduction.

Julia Prantl (Benediktbeuern, Germany/GUS-Gymnasium Bad Tolz) landed there from Germany through sport-scholarships.com. NEC Player of the Year Anna Rapoport (Moscow, Russia/#1239 ) found it from Russia through another recruiting service.

Shams arrived because of connections his Egyptian private coach had.

All wanted to find a way to play competitively while pursuing their education, an opportunity they say only America provides. The proximity to New York did not hurt.

The only information Miller — in his third stint at FDU over 15 years — had on some of them was a national ranking in their home country and maybe a scouting report.

"It takes thoughtful phone conversations, good emails giving them information and trying to do things to reveal the personality of the program and myself," said the understated Miller.

Prantl admits she could not find Hackensack on a map. She didn't meet Miller until she was marooned at Kennedy Airport for hours when her ride to campus fell through.

"He tapped me on the shoulder, and I realized it was him because I saw him online," she said.

Miller said he doesn't prefer international players, but is "just looking for the best student and the best athlete."

When he returned to FDU in 2005, he needed to rebuild the programs after the women's season had been cancelled and the men had suffered through a 1-10 year.

"Both programs were at rock bottom," Miller said. "The team had no profile among the Americans."

So he went global.

And he's hardly alone in doing so, as five of NEC-rival Long Island University's six women are foreign-born.

Miller is as proud of the 3.7 and 3.5 GPAs his women and men, respectively, posted last semester as he was their first titles since 1988 (after losing in the finals the past two seasons) and 2008.

And his players have blended seamlessly.

South Africa's Elmine Botes (Heidelberg Gauteng, Rep. of South Africa/Hoer Volkskool and British International Distance College) described the bond as "supernatural."

"We're integrated into the program and into each other's lives outside of tennis too," the senior said.