Success story of Tanzania´s
Hasheem Thabeet
Hasheem Thabeet with his mom
On a long and winding highway to basketball prominence in America, Hasheem Thabeet (pictured) finally felt the joy of comfort while curled up in the near-fetal position.
The Nissan Altima was not engineered for Thabeet´s 7-foot-plus body, but at least the driver, Melissa Jurney.
According to the New York Times, a wandering son of Tanzania could rest his head with a degree of certainty.
Melissa, then 17, had to agree to be his high school chauffeur and Ben, 14 then, had to surrender his bedroom and sleep on the couch, so Hasheem, like his idol Hakeem, could facilitate his dream.
As such, the mythmakers could not have asked for more than Connecticut's Thabeet. Five years ago, he began e-mailing colleges while in Dar es Salaam, with the audacious notion he might one day be exactly where he wanted.
"Yes, college life is good," Thabeet said, despite a foul-plagued game on Saturday that left him a shadow of the 7-foot-3 shot-blocking machine and 2008-9 Big East co-player of the year.
When his messages to colleges were unanswered, Thabeet almost forgot about basketball, but he was talked into travelling with his high school team to a tournament in Nairobi, and there he caught the eye of a French scout Oliver Noah.
By January 2005, at 17, Thabeet was in the Los Angeles area, not long after, he materialised in Mississippi.
"Some people say, this kid cannot play Division I basketball," he said. Gary Jurney said by American standards he was a beginner. Jurney and wife, Terry, had no inclination to take in a boarder and no room in the house for a teenager of that size.
Mark McClanahan, the coach at Cypress Community Christian School in Houston, was intrigued by Thabeet´s athleticism.
Jurney offered his room. In the fall of 2005, Thabeet moved in, quiet, homesick and too often online in the wee hours, in contact with Mom.
The Nissan Altima was not engineered for Thabeet´s 7-foot-plus body, but at least the driver, Melissa Jurney.
According to the New York Times, a wandering son of Tanzania could rest his head with a degree of certainty.
Melissa, then 17, had to agree to be his high school chauffeur and Ben, 14 then, had to surrender his bedroom and sleep on the couch, so Hasheem, like his idol Hakeem, could facilitate his dream.
As such, the mythmakers could not have asked for more than Connecticut's Thabeet. Five years ago, he began e-mailing colleges while in Dar es Salaam, with the audacious notion he might one day be exactly where he wanted.
"Yes, college life is good," Thabeet said, despite a foul-plagued game on Saturday that left him a shadow of the 7-foot-3 shot-blocking machine and 2008-9 Big East co-player of the year.
When his messages to colleges were unanswered, Thabeet almost forgot about basketball, but he was talked into travelling with his high school team to a tournament in Nairobi, and there he caught the eye of a French scout Oliver Noah.
By January 2005, at 17, Thabeet was in the Los Angeles area, not long after, he materialised in Mississippi.
"Some people say, this kid cannot play Division I basketball," he said. Gary Jurney said by American standards he was a beginner. Jurney and wife, Terry, had no inclination to take in a boarder and no room in the house for a teenager of that size.
Mark McClanahan, the coach at Cypress Community Christian School in Houston, was intrigued by Thabeet´s athleticism.
Jurney offered his room. In the fall of 2005, Thabeet moved in, quiet, homesick and too often online in the wee hours, in contact with Mom.
"It was a situation where he was trying to figure out who he could trust," Jurney said.
Source: The New York Times
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