From Nigeria to the hardwood
Jonathon Smith
The season may be over for Mesa’s basketball team, but freshman forward Tola Akomolafe isn’t wasting any time getting ready for next year. He understands the importance of hard work as well as anyone. He was born in Nigeria, a country ridden with poverty and violence, but his father was able to escape when Akomolafe was a young child.
“Man, it was basically all God. My father was schooling in Nigeria, and trying to find work in America,” Akomolafe said. “Back then they didn’t have a very good communication system, and you would have to travel two or three hours just to wait on a call. There were times were he almost got killed just trying to make a phone call. It was crazy.”
At four years old, Akomolafe moved to El Paso, Texas with his father where he would spend most of his childhood. A recent trip back to Nigeria showed him just how blessed he is to have been given such an opportunity here in America.
“Being there it was like wow! This is Africa. It’s my home and I treasure it because most of my family is there, but it’s you have to really watch your back there. It’s dangerous,” Akomolafe said.
Eventually, he would pick up the game of basketball and never looked back.
“I’m really fortunate to have the opportunities that I was given. I just want to make the most of them. Basketball is my passion, and I plan to go as far with it as I can,” he said.
Akomolafe plans to pursue his basketball career beyond MCC. Even with one season left at MCC, the recruiting has already begun.
Schools like USC and St. Mary’s have already expressed interest, and Akomolafe says he will take the next year to closely evaluate them all. He seems happy just to be in the situation he’s in though.
With a hard working father as a role model, he has been hitting the books as hard as he has been hitting the boards. If basketball doesn’t pan out past college, he wants to become a doctor.
He is ambitious to say the least. In a world where a lot of athletes take the path of least resistance and scrape by in cupcake courses, this is certainly refreshing.
