Once a center of controversy as a 14-year-old prep star, Charles Bassey is back in San...
At St. Anthony, Charles Bassey’s games became an event, as he became the most heralded recruit in the city since Shaquille O’Neal at Cole in the 1980s.It was a workday like any other. This much Dr. Rene Escobedo remembers.
Now 22, Bassey’s life came full circle last month when the Spurs signed the 6-foot-11 center to a two-way contract. The basketball gym at St. Anthony is six miles from the AT&T Center. It took Bassey eight years, and a heap of heartache, to cover that distance. Moving forward has been Bassey’s only option since the day he left home in Lagos, Nigeria for a new life and new opportunity across the ocean in the United States.
The coach, Oaladele Simon Awonuga, eventually hooked Bassey up with a friend in the United States. That was Auriantal, a former college player at Wisconsin who at the time was coaching at Jackson State in Mississippi. He moved into the dormitory at Incarnate Word, one of St. Anthony’s sister schools, and began the process of fitting in as best a 6-foot-9 freshman from Nigeria could at a Catholic school.Escobedo remembers walking out to the practice field one day to find Bassey kicking around a soccer ball, even though he wasn’t on the St. Anthony team.
It was as if he came not just from another continent, but from another planet. Clay Thompson, a guard at rival Central Catholic, was attending an elite camp in Dallas in the summer of 2015.“I thought either somebody just gave him that shirt, or he actually going to school there,” Thompson said. “I was hoping it was the first thing.”Bassey went on to dominate the camp, then dominated St. Anthony’s tiny TAPPS district.
Before the start of Bassey’s sophomore year, TAPPS ruled him ineligible after it found he had received improper financial support.Bassey, for his part, was confused by the controversy.The TAPPS decision ultimately led St. Anthony to leave for the Texas Christian Athletic League, which allows recruiting and financial assistance for athletes.Bassey headed to Louisville the following season to play for Aspire Academy. For a time, he was rated as the No.
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