Coming to America: Senegal basketball star tries to give back

DAKAR, Senegal - He moves across the sand-specked basketball court swathed in the glossy dark blue jersey of his old Japanese pro team, a keepsake from a career that propelled him around the world.

Now back home in Africa, playing among friends, Ndongo Ndiaye is in no hurry to impress anymore. But when a crosscourt pass comes his way, time stands still for a moment.

The 7-foot-1 Senegalese hoop star snatches the ball from the air and slams it home in one deft motion - just like the old days.

Not long ago, Ndiaye lived the life of a professional international athlete, scoring kudos, cash and respect on courts from the U.S. to Lebanon to Japan.

Plucked from teenage obscurity by an American scout, he turned basketball into a 14-year trek across the globe, experiencing things along the way that people in his tiny West African village never had, from hot showers to the finest sashimi and sake.

Earlier this year, Ndiaye moved back to Dakar to start a new career in business, imbued with a fresh perspective on the world. But the nation he left is unchanged. It's still full of kids just like he was once: naive and inexperienced, desperate to escape the continent's crushing poverty and unemployment.

They are there in the basketball academy in Senegal's interior that he visits, the promising high school students hoping for professional careers in the West. They are there, sometimes, on his doorstep, the young kids who cannot afford school, who may never play the game well.

"Basketball helped me to have an education, see new things, travel, make a little bit of money," Ndiaye said in an interview. "And the best thing I can do with that is come back here and help."

The number of African players in the United States has been climbing significantly in recent years. The Associated Press counted more than 170 of them in U.S. junior colleges and colleges last season.

With many more pursuing the great American hoop dream, Ndiaye's story offers a glimpse of what it takes to break out - a combination of talent, work, timing and flexibility.

"The potential in this country is unbelievable as far as basketball," Ndiaye said of his native Senegal. "But most kids here are never given a chance."

___

When Ndiaye was growing up in Sadio, a village some 130 miles east of Dakar, everyone he knew seemed to have the same goal. "Get out of this country and start a new life," he recalled.

The aim: find a job, make enough money to come back, support your family and friends.

He had never heard of basketball before. In Sadio, there were no courts or even TV.

The first time he picked up a basketball was when he went to high school in Dakar at the age of 16.

Already a head taller than his peers, Ndiaye stood out. Boys teased him. Girls wouldn't have anything to do with him. The alienation proved advantageous, though. With little else to do, he was soon playing - and improving - every day.

He joined the high school team, and in his senior year, an American recruiter from the University of Maine showed up.

The man looked at Ndiaye and said, "Holy God, you're 7-foot-tall!" Ndiaye recounted. "Why don't you try out?"

The recruiter left, and two weeks later called - offering a one-year scholarship to a U.S. prep school where Ndiaye could learn English and try his chances at college.

The prospect was daunting. America, from the movies he'd seen, appeared to be a violent frontierland.

"I thought I'd be armed, live with black gangster-rappers or white cowboys," Ndiaye said.

Before leaving, his father handed him a good luck charm, a small pouch made of goatskin to be wrapped around the waist on a thin string. It contained a prayer written in Arabic - "to protect me against guns," Ndiaye shrugged with a smile.

In the fall of 1995, Ndiaye boarded a plane for the first time in his life. Soon, he was gazing down at the world from above the clouds.

___

Instead of Wild West gunbattles and gangland drive-bys, the Senegalese teen discovered quiet American suburbia and lived in a dorm on the campus of Suffield Academy, a private Connecticut prep school founded in 1833.

He fell in love with it, and America.

It was everything Senegal was not. The cars were big. The houses were big. The roads were trash-free and paved. And unlike Senegal's dry and dusty climate, greenery was omnipresent - in neatly trimmed lawns, in lush swaths of treetops.

His coach took him shopping for clothes - the school dress code required blue blazers and khaki pants - and tied his tie each morning because Ndiaye didn't know how.

He took his first shower with hot-running water. And then, in the campus dining hall, he spied something bizarre: a drink dispenser filled with cold milk.

"They told me you don't have to drink it all, if you need more, it's still gonna be there," he said. "But I was hungry. My mind was hungry. It was all so overwhelming."

Ndiaye gulped down five glasses at each meal one day. By nightfall, he was in bed with stomach pains so bad, he never tasted milk again.

Ndiaye felt no racism. But people sometimes stared or joked at his height. When they did, he turned their comments into a conversation-starter, winning instant friends with a capacious smile and a warm personality.

He deciphered the world by looking and listening. He barely spoke English, and history class sounded more like gibberish. After a few months, though, he began to understand, and excel.

He won a basketball scholarship to Providence, which recruited him to play center. Wanting more time on the court, he transferred to Delaware in his sophomore year.

By the time he graduated in 2000 with a degree in business administration, he was good enough to take a shot at the NBA.

He signed for a two-week training camp with the San Antonio Spurs. It paid $25,000, and put him "right up there in heaven," he said.

The NBA dream, however, quickly crashed. Ndiaye was cut and for a time, crushed. But he settled for the next-best thing: the minor-league American Basketball Association. He helped the Detroit Dogs to victory in the nascent league's first-ever championship, and realized second-best wasn't so bad.

"I was doing something I loved, and getting paid for it," he said.

The ABA didn't pay enough, though, so Ndiaye sought more lucrative salaries with professional teams outside of the U.S., "living out of a suitcase" in countries as far-flung as Japan, Lebanon, France, Syria, Tunisia, Angola and Saudi Arabia. The pay was much less than NBA standards but still allowed for a comfortable living.

"Basketball was the same everywhere, but every country was a new experience," he said. "You play a few hours a day and the rest of the time you learn about a new culture, a new religion, how to live with other people. That's where I really grew up as a person."

And most important, perhaps, Ndiaye felt he had become a man.

He could take care of himself, so he bought himself clothes, shoes, a gold necklace.

He could take care of others, so he sent money home.

In 2001, he built an eight-bedroom house for his mother and family. A year later, he got married to a Senegalese woman he met through a friend and started a family.

___

Pro sports is a young man's game, and after one last pro stint in Saudi Arabia, Ndiaye finally moved home in February to settle down.

His countrymen, he noticed, regarded him differently than before.

"When you come back with money in your pocket, people expect that now you can help them out," he said. "You have a certain status in your family. You have respect. People love you more."

These days, Ndiaye sits in the living room of his small Dakar apartment on a brown leather couch. There is a large flat-screen TV, a Persian rug, gold-colored curtains, and in his hand, a small, sweet cup of coffee.

A poster on the wall shows him staring fiercely ahead with the Japanese team Fukuoka Rizing, who he played with in 2007-08. He had enjoyed a special status there - he was the league's tallest player.

At home, Ndiaye exudes an American-style, can-do spirit of entrepreneurialism.

He keeps an apartment in Delaware. And the apartment he owns in Dakar is part of a complex he is building to rent out.

He fiddles with his cell phone and pulls up the number of Senegal's most popular traditional wrestler, a muscle-bound man named Tyson, and says he wants to promote him stateside.

He recounts Senegal's woes - corruption, trash, lack of development - and expounds on improving agricultural production.

He's gotten involved in politics and goes to opposition party meetings, something he never thought he'd do.

"We are not a poor continent. But we live very poorly because of the way we behave and handle things," he said. "I want to see what I can do to help, and I think the best way is to change people's mentality."

He marvels at the American concept of personal responsibility, the unity of Japanese society, and wonders why there is so much trash in Dakar's streets.

Basketball "opened my eyes and allowed me to see things from a different perspective," Ndiaye said. "I've seen how other people live, how other governments function, and I always say, why not us?"

___

A few years ago, Ndiaye spotted the legs and head of a young mechanic sticking out from under a car in the Senegalese town of Thies.

"Do you play basketball?" Ndiaye asked.

The teen said he didn't know anything about the game.

"Well, you should," Ndiaye shot back.

The mechanic was Mouhamed Sene. Now aged 23 and 6-foot-11, Sene is a center for the New York Knicks.

Ndiaye takes no credit. He simply introduced Sene to fellow countryman Amadou Gallo Fall, a chief scout for the Dallas Mavericks who created a basketball academy in Thies that Sene attended called SEEDS, short for Sports for Education and Economic Development in Senegal.

Founded in 2003, SEEDS did not exist when Ndiaye was growing up. If it had, he believes, he might have made the NBA himself.

Ndiaye tries to visit the academy each week or two, helping mentor the couple dozen kids there being groomed for a chance at pro careers. The teenagers sometimes meet NBA coaches and players. A pictorial flier recounts each student's physical assets and wingspan for recruiters.

A decade ago, only a handful of foreign scouts visited Senegal each year, Ndiaye said. Today, they come by the dozens.

"If you qualify, you are definitely going somewhere, because the connections are there, the routes are done," Ndiaye said. "Coaches are calling me all the time, asking, 'Do you know any interesting kids?' Back when we were growing up, it was not that way."

Ahead of a recent practice match on the waxed wood floor of SEEDS' only indoor court - which looks like an American high school gym - two dozen lanky teens gathered in a circle and listened to Ndiaye talk about the importance of body language on the court.

"Be confident," he told them. "Show you have the desire to win."

Asked what they want to do in life, the students' answers were prudent: Accountant. Businessman. Scouting agent. Doctor.

Ndiaye said they all dream of the NBA, but "the reality is, their chances of making it are small."

"Those who succeed are those who do more than others, who try more than others, everyday," he said.

Still, most have a good shot at winning scholarships to American universities or playing in European clubs. And even if they don't, the game of basketball can teach a lot more than court skills.

Ndiaye spoke of a 16-year-old who comes to his home on Sundays, a boy abandoned by his father, whose mother has diabetes and can't walk. The boy is a good point guard, but not good enough for SEEDS. Ndiaye buys him shoes, makes sure he's got food and what he needs for school.

"We want every kid to learn they don't have to be a failure. They can be successful at whatever they do in life," Ndiaye said. "Basketball can teach you that."

Miss State roster features Congo contingent 

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi State's Chanel Mokango, Armelie Lumanu and Rima Kalonda have something that Africans playing basketball in America rarely enjoy.

They have friends from home - each other.

"We're sisters, like sisters," Mokango said.

In fact, the trio are an anomaly in a couple of ways.

While the stream of African boys coming to America to play basketball is on the rise, girls are making the journey at a much lower rate. Scouts seek out boys, hold camps in Africa and help pave the way to a high school or college in the states with scholarships and travel money.

An African player is a rare find on a women's basketball roster, let alone three. Just a few dozen play basketball in the NCAA, NAIA or junior college levels, and only two are in the WNBA.

Of those who do make it, most go it alone, learning a language, a sport and a culture on their own. Mississippi State's Congo contingent have each other to lean on.

They share a hometown and country. They share a common background and language. They share laughter and loneliness, the latter diminished but not extinguished by their friendship.

None of the three players expected to end up in the U.S.

They only landed here after a friend passed then-Southeastern Illinois College coach Greg Franklin a tape of the Congolese national team.

Franklin had experience with international players and took a chance on contacting the women, who joined the national team as young as 16. They jumped at the chance to come to America, and not just because they wanted to play basketball.

"It's big for me to get a U.S. degree," Kolanda said. "I'm not worried about basketball. I'm worried first about my degree. I could get a knee injury and say I'm not going to play basketball no more. But if I get my degree, I can go to work."

Another byproduct of their move to the U.S. is the example it sets for other girls back home who might have the talent to play college or professional ball. As in the U.S., women's basketball in Africa is limited by the amount of money it draws. In some areas, it is starting thrive. The Congolese players hope they're just a first wave.

"That's why I'm here," Kolanda said.

Playing college basketball obviously benefits the Congolese players.

But their presence also benefits the Bulldogs. With Mokango and Lumanu in the starting lineup and each averaging just more than 10 points per game, Mississippi State played its way into the second round of the NCAA tournament last season. The players expect similar results in 2009-10, their senior year, when Kolanda will be vying for a starting position as well.

The women followed Franklin to Starkville when he joined coach Sharon Fanning's staff. While they all grew up in Kinshasha, they didn't know each other until they started playing basketball. Each came to the sport in a different way.

Lumanu, a 5-foot-9 guard, didn't start playing until high school. The 6-5 Mokango resisted for a long time before finally giving in at 15 to those who insisted someone so tall should be throwing a ball through a hoop.

"I said, 'Well, I'll try,' and when I stopped they said, 'Good, you do this,'" Mokango said. "So I kept playing."

Kolanda joined a club team after her step sister noticed her seeming boundless energy and recommended the sport to Kolanda's father. She got her start around the age of 11.

"My daddy's a boxer, so when my daddy practiced I would practice with my daddy, so I would grow up like a man, so strong," the 6-3 Kolanda said. "I liked to run and play and fight with people. My step sister she saw me strong and just running for no reason."

All three say basketball is much different than it is at home. There is more of an emphasis on conditioning and weightlifting for a start, they said.

"They still have a lot to learn but I think this year will be a good one for them," Fanning said. "One of the biggest things coming in was just the language barrier and they've made tremendous strides just in the last year. When they came to us they really couldn't speak English very well at all. As you communicate better and understand better, you get better."

That language barrier existed off the court, too, sometimes turning even the most simple discussions into ordeals.

Coaches are allowed to cook a meal for the team once in a while, so Fanning asked the Congolese players what they wanted to eat.

"I kept trying to ask Rima what she likes and she kept saying, 'Spanish,'" Fanning said.

Fanning assumed Rima meant some dish popular in Spain. To find out, Fanning had the players cook for her - they served her spinach.

For three years, Mokango, Lumanu and Kolanda have relied on teammates and friends to act as a surrogate family. The players often find themselves daydreaming about the simple pleasures of family life. Mokango can't wait to again sit down to a meal of ribs and plantains prepared like mashed potatoes by her mother. And Kolanda would like to wrap her arms around her father "because I'm a daddy's girl."

"I miss my friends, I miss food," Kolanda said. "I miss everything. It's a lot. I miss just everything."

They say the journey is worth it, though, and each is making strides toward their goals.

"If you could've seen them the first day they got here and the progress they've made, it's astonishing," Franklin said.

-- Chris Talbott

From homesick to standout, Nigerian heads for Pitt 

FORESTVILLE, Md. - Take out a teenage boy out of Nigeria and place him in an affluent private school in the Washington, D.C., suburbs with no friends or family from back home, and certain things are inevitable.

Culture shock. Homesickness.

For Talib Zanna, that was just the start. His arrival at Bishop McNamara High School in his sophomore year coincided with Ramadan so, as a devout Muslim, he was having to fast during the day while mustering the strength for rigorous practices on the court and an even more rigorous curriculum in the classrooms.

Then, after a handful of games, he broke his ankle. So much for that season.

"I was real homesick," Zanna said. "I got here, I was like, 'Coach, I need to go back home. I can't do this no more.' My Dad called me and he told me, 'You have to be strong,' so I'm strong. I stay strong."

A few years later, the soft-spoken Zanna was strolling the halls with confidence, ruling with the court with his all-around game and setting up a bright future. The highly recruited 6-foot-9 forward has chosen to attend Pittsburgh this fall, another success story for the growing pipeline of Nigerian prospects to the United States.

"He's a phenomenal young man - to leave his family, come over here for the last three years and do what he's doing," Bishop McNamara coach Marty Keithline said.

Zanna is among a generation of Nigerians inspired by countryman Hakeem Olajuwon, the NBA great whose career spawned a sports revolution of sorts in his native country. Zanna was diverted from soccer to basketball as he grew taller in his hometown of Kuduna, started playing for local clubs and soon was getting invitations to major camps throughout Africa.

It was in Lagos, at a big man camp run former Georgetown player Godwin Owinje, that Zanna met Keithline, who was part of a contingent of high school and junior college coaches invited to run drills for the 75 or so Nigerian youngsters.

"We talked extensively for about five months after I went over there," Keithline said, "trying to get him a visa, trying to get everything settled with immigration and making sure the paperwork was straight."

Zanna's talent was never in question. He posted 17 points and 16 rebounds in his first game on U.S. soil. He averaged 14.6 points and 11.8 rebounds as a senior. He added about 30 pounds of muscle in his 2½ years at Bishop McNamara, benefiting from a better diet and the school's weightlifting program.

"When I came over to America, all I do is block shots, rebound, that's all I want to do," Zanna said. "But coach Keithline worked hard with me and he made him an offensive player, defensive player, good rebounder."

Zanna has developed a reliable outside shot, which he demonstrated in a drill with coach Keithline after an interview at the school's gym.

"I need to work on my shooting more and my ball-handling because I love to get a 3, yeah," he said, flashing a smile.

The personal transition was more challenging. Because of visa and financial issues, Zanna has not been home since his arrival as a sophomore, and his family has never visited him in the United States. He uses e-mail and phone calls to stay in touch and lives with a host family from Guyana. Keithline said the host family pays the nearly $10,000 annually for books and tuition at the private school.

The arrangement has worked so well that Zanna calls his host mother "Mom." Fortunately he had already learned to speak English in Nigeria.

"It's hard for teenagers to leave your parents. You don't know nobody, coming to a different place, trying to learn a new culture and trying to learn the way they lead their lives, the way they act," Zanna said. "When I was back home, I just go to school, get back home, take like three hours break, take a nap and go play basketball. In America, you make use of the time all the time. You don't have the spare time. You go to school, do the work, go to practice, when you got home finish your homework, go to bed, so no time for you."

Not long after Zanna committed to Pittsburgh, his father died. Zanna wasn't able to make it home for the funeral, although he does plan to return to Nigeria this summer to finally see his family again.

"He passed away, and that was the saddest moment I've ever had," Zanna said. "It really touched me. I was playing this game because of him and try to make him proud of me."

Even now, Zanna talks about his father in the present tense. He plans to study international business at Pitt, following in Dad's footsteps.

"He's a successful businessman. He's a real hardworking man, and he wants the best for his kids," Zanna said. "When I told him I have the love and passion for basketball, he told me if you want to be a basketball player and a successful man like me, go ahead - you can go do what you want."

-- Joseph White