CHAPTER 8

Francis Moka was thirty-five years old and worked as a scout for the Denver Nuggets. He was born in London after his parents fled Sudan in the early 1990s. At the age of twelve he was six feet tall and caught the attention of a youth league coach who signed him up and taught him the game. At seventeen, he was recruited by a private academy in Florida to play basketball and, of course, become a student-athlete. He accepted a full scholarship to Stanford but was hounded by knee injuries and played little. He excelled in the classroom and graduated with honors. Like his close friend Ecko, Frankie, as he was known to everyone, aspired to coach Division I college basketball.

Frankie and his five all-stars strode into the spacious high school gym and were introduced to Coach Lam and his gang from the mother country. Of the fifteen, all but one had been born in South Sudan. For a moment there was the typical awkwardness as the players looked each other over, sized up one another, wondered if this or that one could really play, while Ecko and Frankie tried to keep it light. The team would have no rivalries, no squabbles, no grudges. They would compete for positions but each would get an equal chance, and the coaches demanded allegiance to the team.

Not surprisingly, Dak Marial got more attention than the others. According to several recruiting sites, he was either the third- or fourth-rated high school prospect in the nation and had already committed to UCLA. In other words, Dak was already riding the rocket his teammates were dreaming of. But his story was even sadder than most. When he was seven years old, he watched as both parents were burned alive in the family’s hut during a raid. An aunt fled with him into the bush and they almost died of starvation before stumbling into a refugee camp. Remarkably, the camp had a dirt basketball court with two backboards and plenty of balls, courtesy of the foundation established by Manute Bol. Dak started playing and grew up with the game. After six years in the camp, Dak and his aunt arrived in the U. S. where relatives were waiting.

After an hour of conversation, during which every player was required to say something, Ecko split them into five teams of three for half-court scrimmages.

· · ·

It was Ecko’s third South Sudanese team to compete in the showcase. The sites were moved each year to encourage participation by scouts, but the venues didn’t really matter. The games attracted hundreds of college coaches and their assistants, but the stands were usually empty. Few American basketball fans were curious about eighteen-year-old players from Croatia or Brazil, especially in the middle of the summer. Two years earlier, Ecko brought his team to Orlando for the first time and learned the valuable lesson that the theme parks were too strong a distraction. Sure, the players were eager to strut their stuff and impress the scouts, but they were just as eager to see Disney World.

Therefore, on the second full day in Orlando, Coaches Lam and Moka loaded the team into two long white vans and took them to the Magic Kingdom. They drove to the front gate, laid down a few rules, gave them passes and cash allowances, and said so long. See ya at six.

Ecko had been there twice and loathed the place. A long hot day in the sun, fighting crowds, waiting in lines, and the players should be ready to forget about Mickey and concentrate on basketball.

The two coaches drove back to Orlando, to the campus of the University of Central Florida. They parked near the CFE Arena, went inside, and made their way to the floor where the team from Brazil was practicing. The coach was unhappy and had a deep voice, one that boomed with what was certainly some very colorful language, in Portuguese.

Ecko and Frankie weren’t there to watch a practice, though their team would play the Brazilians in a few days. They were there to pick up their packets, team guides, schedules, etc., stuff that was all available online, but the real reason was to see their buddies. Several dozen of them were sitting courtside, in the expensive seats, ostensibly watching the action on the court but in reality just checking to see who showed up next.

The world of college coaching is small and insular and everybody knows everybody else. Gossip roars through its ranks: who’s got a new contract and who’s headed for the chopping block; who’s looking for an assistant and who wants to get rid of one; which school wants to up its game and which one is short on money; which school is planning a new arena and which school desperately needs one. And the deadliest rumor: Who’s being investigated by the NCAA?

And that was the light gossip. When the chatter turned to recruiting, everyone talked at once, but little was actually said. Secrets were jealously guarded.

Ecko’s team was getting more and more attention. The year before, the South Sudanese had placed third in the tournament, but his boys had stolen the show with their rim-rattling dunks and gravity-defying blocked shots. What the scouts and the media loved was their enthusiasm for the game, their endless hustle, their selfless play, their support for one another, and their smiles. They came from a troubled land, but they were proud of their country and wanted the world to know it.

“Got any five-stars? ” asked an assistant from Missouri.

“They’re all five-stars, ” Ecko said. “I don’t fool with four-stars. ”

“So you’re going all the way? ”

“We got it won, fellas. My boys are already at Disney World celebrating. ”

“Seriously, who’s your best? ”

“That would be Mr. Marial. ”

“Okay, okay. I think he’s spoken for. Who’s number two? ”

“A guard named Alek Garang. ”

“From where? ”

“Juba, but he may go to Ridgewood this season. ”

The coach shrugged it off and feigned disinterest. It was well accepted that the South Sudanese who were playing high school ball in the U. S. were a year or two ahead of their friends back home. The competition and coaching were simply stronger in the U. S. The great ones would catch up and compete at a higher level. The good ones would likely not make it.

“Who you watching? ” Ecko asked another coach.

“Americans? ”

“No, we know them already. The foreign kids. ”

“Well, everybody’s buzzing about that Koosh Koosh kid? ”

“Beg your pardon. ”

“You know, that big guy from Latvia with the last name that sounds like Koosh Koosh. Only he can pronounce it. No one can spell it. ”

“Latvia? ”

“Yeah, he plays for the Croatians? ”

“Makes perfect sense. ”

“One of those Eastern European teams. Kid’s six ten and can shoot from mid-court. ”

“We got three of those, ” Frankie said with a straight face.

“Gimme their names. ”

“Not now. You gotta watch ’em. ”

“Yeah, yeah, ” his friend said, waving him off.

Other coaches, almost all of them assistants, came and went. There was a hospitality room in one of the luxury suites, and Ecko and Frankie parked themselves there for lunch and enjoyed the camaraderie of old and new friends.

· · ·

After dinner at the hotel, the team gathered in a small conference room on the second level. Frankie passed out schedules and practice plans to each player. Ecko called the team to order and demanded attention. He said, “Okay, here’s our schedule for tomorrow, so listen carefully. At seven a. m. sharp we meet here in this room for the first call home. Tomorrow is July the fourteenth and your families are waiting to hear from you around two p. m. East Africa is seven hours ahead of Orlando. Breakfast is here at the hotel at seven-thirty. I know you’re still jet-lagged, so go to bed early tonight. Very early. At eight-fifteen, the vans leave for practice back at a high school. We practice from nine to noon, three hours and it will be intense. Memorize the practice plans before you go to sleep tonight and memorize them again before breakfast. At noon we return here to shower and eat lunch. At one-thirty we leave for UCF where we’ll stay for an hour, watch part of a practice, then leave at three and go to Rollins College to check out the venue and watch part of another practice. At five we leave Rollins, come back here, change, leave here at six-thirty, go back to the high school for a one-hour shootaround. Back here for dinner at eight, bed at ten. ”

As he spoke his tone became sharper, and by the time he finished he sounded like a drill sergeant. “Got it? ” he barked.

The responses were the usual, casual acknowledgments that the coach had said something.

Ecko looked at Quinton Majok and asked, “Quinton, who, in your opinion, is the dumbest player on this team? ”

Majok, already established as one of the team clowns, pointed without hesitation to his roommate, Awino Leyano. “Him, ” he said.

Ecko said, “Stand up, Awino. ”

He slowly unwound all eighty inches and smiled at his coach. Ecko said, “Okay, Awino, give me back tomorrow’s schedule, in perfect order. ”

Awino stopped smiling and said, “Well, first of all, Coach, I’m much smarter than Quinton. ”

“We’ll see. The schedule, please. ”

“Okay, here at seven to call home, then breakfast at seven-thirty, then take the van to practice, from nine to noon, three whole hours which is a lot more than I need, then back here for lunch. Leave here at one-thirty for UCF, stay there until three, then go to Rollins, stay there until five, then back here to change and go to a shootaround, then come back here and eat. ”

Ecko stared at him as if he had just stabbed someone. Finally, he asked, “What time do we leave here for the shootaround? ”

“Uh, six. ”

“No! Wrong! Sit down. ”

Awino folded himself back into his chair. Ecko glared at the others and growled, “Samuel, what time do we leave here for the shootaround? ”

“Six-thirty. ”

“And what time is dinner tomorrow night? ”

“Eight. ”

“Thank you. ” As Ecko paced a bit his team seemed stunned by his harshness. Then he continued, “If you’re late for, or miss, a meal, a meeting, a van ride, or anything scheduled, it’s an automatic one-game suspension. No questions asked. Listen to me and to Coach Moka and hear what we say. Each night I will give you the schedule for the next day and I will ask one of you to recite it back to me perfectly. Understood? Pay attention. ”

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