Coming to America: Africans playing hoops in US

[March 19, 2010]  MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) -- Growing up in Nigeria, Robert Ojeah fretted over the demands of everyday life, the sort of things that shouldn't be a burden to a child.

Would he have a roof over his head that night? What was he going to do for money? Where was his next meal coming from? He bounced around from relative to relative in search of a bed. He worked odd jobs for a few extra pennies, from construction to collecting fares on a bus. He came up with ingenious ways to get a little food in his belly.

We would catch animals. Cook them, roast them, eat them," he said. "Rabbits. Snakes. Squirrels."

No matter what life dealt him, Ojeah kept growing. And growing. And growing. One day, someone suggested he might give basketball a try.

Now it's his best hope for a better life.

"This is my big dream," said Ojeah, who towers over most people (he's 6-foot-10) and has muscles upon muscles on a hard-as-a-rock, 220-pound body that is all of 16 years old. "My favorite player in the NBA is Ben Wallace. I like the way he goes up to get rebounds. That is my type of game. I love to get rebounds, and I love playing defense."

Meet basketball's new wave.

At the top is Tanzania's Hasheem Thabeet, a 7-2 center who played at UConn and is expected to be one of the top picks in Thursday's NBA draft.

He and Ojeah are part of a vanguard of African youngsters who have found their way, through hoops, from a continent mired in poverty to America -- landing on the rosters of high school, AAU and college teams across the land.

Some were lucky enough to be exposed to an increasingly global game on satellite TV in their native countries. Most were keenly aware of the path laid out by pioneers such as Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo, the earliest of their continent's basketball exports.

"We're all very pleased with the results we have seen, with how many kids are coming from Africa," said Mutombo, whose long NBA career finally ended last month at age 42 when he injured his knee in a playoff game with the Houston Rockets. "They come to get a good education, maybe play at the professional level, or go back and get a nice job back home."

The sacrifices are immense: They are little more than children when they leave behind family and friends, landing in a new country, a new culture. There's loneliness. There's alienation. There's fear.

But as difficult as the journey is, the rewards can be even greater. They inspire many to try.

"When you go back to Africa with a degree from an American school," Mutombo said, "you are somebody."

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COMING TO AMERICA

At the highest level, the numbers are still minuscule: seven native Africans (including Chicago's Luol Deng, who left Sudan to escape a civil war and considers himself British) were in the NBA this season, making up less than 2 percent of the league's total players.

Look further, though. A count from The Associated Press culled from school and basketball Web sites found more than 170 African players at U.S. junior colleges, colleges and universities last season. Other sources show 100 players or so at the high school level, many placed at prep schools catering to international students.

Not all will make it to the NBA, of course, but the growing numbers will surely have a trickle-up effect.

"There's a lot of potential over there," said DJ Mbenga, a native of the Congo who won an NBA championship ring last week as an end-of-the-bench backup for the Los Angeles Lakers. "If I can do it, they can do it, too."

Mbenga, a 7-foot center, had a relatively affluent childhood in the Congo, where his father worked in the government and could afford such luxuries as vacations to Europe. But when a new regime took control of the war-torn country, Mbenga's dad died under mysterious circumstances. His teenage son escaped a similar fate by fleeing to Belgium, which granted him political asylum.

In his adopted country, Mbenga discovered a new passion. Basketball helped him cope with his grief.

"It was a way for me to get away from everything, everything I was thinking in my mind," he said. "All I did was practice, practice, practice, try not to think about what happened. The more time I spent playing basketball, the more I loved it."

Back down the pipeline are players such as Solomon Alabi, a 7-1 Nigerian heading into his sophomore season at Florida State. Like most African youngsters, he started out playing soccer -- by far the most popular sport on the continent.

"I wasn't really, really good in soccer," Alabi said. "I played because that was the only sport that everybody plays around there. We didn't really have basketball. We only have one basketball court in the place I'm from and it's not really an organized basketball court. It was on the sand and we played soccer on the basketball court. It wasn't like level concrete or anything."

And the basket? "They got a pole and put a board on it," he said.

This is how it often starts, a kid falling in love with the game under the most inelegant of conditions. The path to the U.S. is never quite the same but follows a general pattern: a local patron steers the prospect to an African camp, which could be sponsored by the NBA or by a local player who made it out; the camp provides high-level instruction and a chance to get spotted by coaches and scouts; prep schools, financial aid and host families are arranged on the other side of the Atlantic.

Alabi wound up at a camp run by Masai Ujiri, a Nigerian who played college ball at Montana State, professionally in Europe and now is director of global scouting for the Toronto Raptors. That connection turned out to be Alabi's conduit to America.

"Masai brings in college and high school coaches as instructors, and they told us how basketball is big in America and you can go to school for free if you play basketball," Alabi said. "I was really interested. That was when I started to play hard."

Still, when presented with the chance to come to America, Alabi hedged. He would be without his father, a police officer; his mother, who runs a general store; plus three brothers and two sisters. He would be in a strange country where he didn't know anyone.

"I was scared of leaving my family because I never thought I could live alone," Alabi said.

It was too good a chance to pass up. He received a scholarship to Montverde Academy, a private boarding school in central Florida, and lived with a host family on the weekends.

"It was difficult," said Alabi, who didn't even have a pair of basketball sneakers when he got to the Sunshine State. "The food and everything, communicating with people, it was hard. I was quiet all the time unless I was playing basketball and having fun."

Kathy Lucas and her family took in two Nigerians: Alabi and Joseph Katuka, who plays at George Washington.

They're both like sons now.

"It's been such a wonderful thing," Lucas said. "They treated my son like he's their little brother. They would tell my daughter that she should clean her room. They helped with things around the house. They were such a positive influence, not only on my children but all the kids in the neighborhood."

There were challenges along the way. Alabi and Katuka both spoke English, but they still had trouble communicating with their new family in the early days.

"They had their own special little tribal language. When there was something they didn't want me to hear or they were more comfortable, they would revert back to their tribal language," Lucas said. "They also slept with the light on all the time. I don't know what that was about. Just learning all the little things was interesting. But once I told them how to wash a dish and put it in the dishwasher, they would do it perfectly."

Nineteen-year-old Remy Ndiaye started playing a decade ago in his native Senegal, where his aunt was captain of the country's national team. He just finished his first year at Lake Forest Academy, a private high school in the northern suburbs of Chicago, right next door to the NFL Bears' training complex.

"We've got kids from all over the world," said Matt Vaughn, the coach at Lake Forest. "We hadn't really had many kids from Africa until the last couple of years."

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THE LONG ROAD

Ojeah, the 16-year-old from Nigeria, went to live on a farm with his grandfather after his parents divorced. That's where he learned to snare his own food.

"The easiest to catch are rabbits and snakes," he said. "A rabbit digs two holes: one to enter and one to come out of. When you see the footprints at the mouth of the hole, you know the rabbit is in there. So you block the other hole, and someone stands there with a stick. Their heads are very soft, very fragile."

Ojeah started out playing soccer -- he was a goalie -- but switched to basketball when he was 13. His size got him invited to a camp attended by Linzy Davis, who runs Team Georgia Elite, a high-level AAU program in Atlanta.

Davis has turned the recruitment of African players into something of a specialty -- developing crucial relationships, learning the ins and outs of local customs, becoming an expert on visa approval, which might be the most important step in the process.

If a player can't get out of Africa, there's little chance of fully developing his skills. Youth leagues, top-level coaches and basic infrastructure -- courts, balls, uniforms -- are all severely lacking.

On his first try, Davis spent $100 each on visa applications for 17 promising players. All were rejected.

"That was $1,700 down the drain," he said.

Plus, it was an ordeal just to apply at the American embassy in a country such as Nigeria.

"It looks like a sold-out concert when the embassy opens up," Davis said. "The lines are down the street and around the corner. But I learned a great deal about the whole process. Many people are trying to get into the United States and a great majority get turned down."

Once in this country, Davis lines up financial aid at schools such as Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, N.C.; that's where Ojeah and fellow Nigerians (and Team Georgia Elite players) Onyekachi Uchebo and Gideon Oji are students. The coach got another Nigerian, Ismaila Dauda, into Miami's Choice Academy.

While tuition and weekday board is usually provided by a prep school eager to boost its basketball stature or a wealthy benefactor, Davis said he still has to dig deep out of his own pocket. He's driving players around the Southeast every weekend, or buying airline tickets for particularly long trips. He'll stock his guys up with food before sending them back to school, and provide any other necessities they might need.

"I'm well into five figures on these kids," said Davis, who sells medical supplies and lab equipment and insists he gains no financial benefit from his work with the players. "I tell them I'm not doing this for me. I get nothing out of this other than the enjoyment of seeing them get to where they want to get to. I don't even know why I do it. I could just take this money and go play golf at the country club."

The NBA has spread the game through its "Basketball Without Borders" program, which exposes promising young players throughout the continent to the fine points of the sport at a camp in South Africa. This summer, the league is planning additional clinics in Kenya and Angola.

"Right now, they don't have the infrastructure," NBA commissioner David Stern said. "There's an enormous amount of raw talent."

There are similar initiatives such as SEEDS -- Sports for Education and Economic Development in Senegal -- which was started by Amadou Gallo Fall, vice president of international affairs and director of scouting for the Dallas Mavericks.

Gallo Fall, who played basketball at the University of District Columbia after being spotted by a Peace Corps worker at a camp in Tunisia, educates players on the potential pitfalls of trying to reach America, everything from under-the-table payments to broken promises.

"We hear the stories," he said. "If there's no opportunity at all, if kids don't have a court, they don't have a basketball, they don't any shoes, certainly there's going to be a sense of despair and leaving at all costs. That's what people may prey on. Really, nobody should be surprised."

Mutombo rails against European scouts who allegedly spy on NBA-affiliated camps in Africa, pick out the best players, then try to lure them away with instant cash.

"They take the names and numbers of the players," he said. "Then they follow the kids, give the kids money and take them away to Europe."

There's certainly the potential for academic abuse, since many Africans wind up at basketball-oriented prep schools. But plenty of kids seem genuinely committed to getting a good education, overcoming language and cultural barriers to play catch-up in the classroom.

"I will guarantee you one thing: If there are 300 kids, 298 of them will get their degrees if they are African kids," said Ujiri, the Toronto Raptors official who also runs two camps in Nigeria and is a director for Basketball Without Borders in South Africa. "They have a direction in life. They have a goal. They're ambitious. They work hard."

They are certainly willing to sacrifice, as are their families back in Africa. Parents are sending their children to a faraway land, linked only by the occasional phone call or e-mail. Many kids don't even get to go home over summer break because they are honing their game at the AAU level, or doing extra schoolwork, or don't want to risk visa problems preventing them from coming back.

Talib Zanna, a 6-9 Nigerian who signed with Pitt after playing at Bishop McNamara High School near Washington, didn't even go back home when his father died.

"Me and his mom had a good conversation," said Godwin Owinje, a former Georgetown player who discovered Zanna at a camp he runs in Lagos. "We decided it was better for him to stay in school."

Said Zanna: "That was the saddest moment I've ever had. It really touched me. I was playing this game because of him and (trying) to make him proud of me."

Ojeah's mother, Funto Oletubo, reveals the pain felt on the other end. She agreed to let her boy go to America, but every day it hurts.

"I talk to him on the phone two times a week," she said when reached in Nigeria. "I miss my son."

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A CONTINENT'S HOPE

Olajuwon, a Nigerian, was invaluable in helping expand the popularity of basketball on his native continent. Hakeem the Dream was a founding member of "Phi Slamma Jamma," became the first African to go No. 1 overall in the NBA draft, led the Houston Rockets to back-to-back championships, won an MVP award and played in 12 All-Star games.

Not far behind on the African popularity meter is Mutombo, one of the greatest defensive players in NBA history and just as well known for humanitarian efforts in his native Congo, where he donated much of the funding for a $29 million hospital on the outskirts of his poverty-plagued hometown.

The growth of the African game might have been even greater if the two stars were in their prime now, rather than retired.

"We were very unlucky with Hakeem and Mutombo," Ujiri said. "They came along at a time when there wasn't that much exposure. Look what (China's) Yao Ming and (Argentina's Manu) Ginobili have done for their continents. If Hakeem were playing at this time, he would be an unbelievable face for Africa.

"We don't have somebody who stands out, someone for the kids to look up to. We have little players here and there, but they're not huge names like Yao Ming that can carry a whole continent."

Maybe Thabeet, the UConn center, will fill that void. Or maybe someone else will come along in a few years, lifting up an entire continent one basket a time.

There's certainly no shortage of talent.

"We don't want to get into stereotypes," Gallo Fall said. "But look at the NBA. Who makes up most of the players? They really come from African backgrounds, for the most part. There's no dancing around the subject. It's reality. But it's a good reality."

The NBA recognizes the financial potential of developing the game in Africa, just as it does in China, South America and India. The league is actually holding internal meetings to discuss the best ways to maximize the continent's potential at the lower levels, according to Stern.

"It is not irrelevant that there are business opportunities that go hand in hand with that," the commissioner said. "Cell phone penetration is increasing dramatically in Africa. Business centers are developing in a lot of countries. Many of our sponsors are seeking to go deeper into the African markets."

Gallo Fall is pushing hard to get more Africans into the NBA, but his ultimate goal is to grow the game in his native Senegal and the rest of the continent. He would like every African kid to have the chance to play basketball for a high school team, to earn a college scholarship, to play in a professional league -- all without leaving behind their families, their friends, their cultures and the millions who weren't so lucky.

"I want to replicate what we have here on a small scale," Gallo Fall said. "We've already started to do that in Senegal. Hey, every kid cannot come here. We have to create opportunities there, especially at a young age, so they'll be better prepared. All they want is the opportunity to train and compete."

For now, they will have to look elsewhere.

Toward America.

"Basketball has really changed my life a lot," said Dauda, the 15-year-old who plays at Choice Academy. "I can't believe the dream has come true up to this level. Before I came, it was like, 'Man, when am I going to be in the United States in high school? When am I going to be in college playing. When am I going to be on TV?' If I could be on TV, my mom would be happy."

Certainly, it would be unreasonable to expect a sport invented with peach baskets to cure an entire continent's ills, especially when it remains far behind soccer in popularity. But every kid who makes it out through hoops -- and goes back to spread a message of hope and prosperity -- improves the odds for everyone.

"Africa will never have peace, will never change with the people in power now. They will never understand. They just look out for themselves," said Mbenga, the Lakers' center. "But when you are blessed, you can go back and give back to the communities over there. A lot of young people will look up to you. You can talk to them, and they will listen.

"You can give them hope."

One basket at a time.

[Associated Press; By PAUL NEWBERRY]

AP Sports Writer Joseph White in Washington, Nancy Armour in Chicago, Hank Kurz in Richmond, Va., and Chris Talbott in Jackson, Miss., contributed to this report.

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