Associated Press

File 1995 Virginia Tech's Ace Custis (20) signs autographs for fans following their victory over Marquette for the NIT Championship at New York's Madison Square Garden on March 29, 1995. Shawn Smith made two free throws with less than a second left in overtime to give Tech a 65-64 victory.

Ace Custis was the hub of Virginia Tech's 1995 NIT championship team, and 15 years later, he's still the go-to-guy.

"I'm in contact with pretty much all my teammates," he said. "Whenever somebody wants to get in touch with somebody, they call me."

Most of the year, Custis plays social secretary from half a world away. For the past seven years, he has played pro basketball in Japan.

It's been his favorite stop in a long overseas career. Yet, when the contract for his eighth season arrived at his Suffolk home recently, Custis let it sit on the dining room table longer than usual.

He's 36 with a left knee that has been operated on four times. He's married with three children, ranging in age from 3 months to 15 years, and is finding it harder to leave them behind while he goes abroad each fall. He's got some local real estate investments to look after and is also eager to break into college coaching.

He inquired about some jobs, but when a coaching offer failed to materialize this spring, he signed the contract and mailed it back.

"I decided to give it one more year," he said.

It will be his 14th pro season, quite a journey for someone who grew up playing basketball on a dirt court in Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Custis and his friends would hose it down on hot days to keep the dust down.

He scored 1,706 points and grabbed 1,777 rebounds at Tech. On Senior Day in 1997, his number was retired -- an honor bestowed on only four Hokies. No player since Custis has been so acknowledged.

An NBA career beckoned, or so he thought. But Custis blew out his knee before his rookie season and logged just one season in the league -- on injured reserve with Dallas in 1997-98. Since then, he's accumulated frequent flier miles and passport stamps playing in Indonesia, Venezuela, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar and the Philippines.

In 2003, he landed in Japan and decided to stay awhile.

"Outside of the NBA, it's the best league I've played in, as far as being treated like a professional, getting paid on time, the whole nine yards," he said.

The 6-foot-8 Custis shares minutes with another American veteran, former NBA player Jerald Honeycutt. A league rule implemented a few years ago prevents them from being on the court at the same time. While the rule change has basically halved Custis' stats -- he averaged 10.5 points in just 18.3 minutes per game last year -- it's also lengthened his career.

So he plays on, a link to a Hokie era that seems ever more distant. When Custis enrolled in 1992, Tech played in the Metro Conference. There was talk of joining the Big East, but that move was almost a decade away. Instead, Tech jumped to the Atlantic 10 in 1995 for Custis' final two seasons.

The Hokies finally joined the Big East in 2000 and jumped to the ACC in 2004, a move that would have been unimaginable in Custis' day. Playing in the ACC would have been a dream come true, Custis said. But he has no regrets with the way either his college or pro careers turned out.

A fan favorite as a player, Custis remains a popular figure in Blacksburg and in the Roanoke Valley, where several of his former teammates have settled.

He was hoping to relocate there himself, and talked with coach Seth Greenberg about the director of basketball operations job that was open recently. Greenberg hired Dennis Wolf, the former head coach at Boston University.

Custis lacks coaching experience, the trade-off for playing so long overseas. He considers himself a student of the game, though, and after 14 years as a pro, certainly knows a thing or two about professionalism and dedication.

On a scorching day last week, he drove to Booker T. Washington High in Norfolk to work out with college players who are 15 or more years younger. He plans to play in the 7 Cities Pro-Am later this summer as part of his preparation before heading back to Japan.

For one last time, if all goes as planned.