Every year, Kenny Donaldson meets with each player on both UCLA basketball teams. As the academic coordinator for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, Donaldson helps the athletes schedule classes and choose a major. He also speaks with recruits to explain the academic benefits UCLA offers. He’s held the position for the past five seasons.
And through all those years and all those players, Donaldson remembers one discussion most vividly.
Nearly four years ago, Donaldson met Alfred Aboya. A big recruit from a small prep school in New Hampshire, Aboya was unlike any player Donaldson had ever recruited. He stood 6 feet, 8 inches with a massive wingspan and a big, broad smile. He’d journeyed to New Hampshire from his homeland ““ Yaounde, Cameroon ““ and spoke perfect French and German but uneasy English. He liked to crack simple jokes, even in serious conversation. And, strangest of all for a college athlete, Aboya’s decision of what university to attend hinged on academics, not basketball.
In that meeting, Aboya carefully questioned Donaldson about the value of a UCLA degree. He was specific when most high school seniors would be general or vague. He didn’t ask about graduating early in order to jump to the NBA. He wanted to know about the possibilities of attending graduate school.
“He asked questions that I’ve never had a student-athlete ask,” Donaldson said.
In the four years since that meeting, Aboya has blossomed into one of the most important players on the Bruin basketball team. He’s been to three Final Fours, and he starts on this year’s team, which holds similar aspirations for March. That part of his life has made Aboya one of the most popular and recognizable people on UCLA’s campus.
Aboya’s student life has progressed in a similar fashion. He studied political science with a concentration in international relations and graduated in three years. At the start of this school year, he enrolled in a master’s program at the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. In class, Aboya learns skills he hopes will one day enable him to serve his nation as a politician or community organizer.
And that’s the reason he’s here.
“˜I knew nothing’
American amateur basketball functions through a complicated system. Recruiting dominates the system, and publicity plays a major role. Shoe companies wield a significant influence. College programs recruit with an almost overwhelming zeal and intensity. Ultimately, it’s an intricate business, and most players define success in very business-like terms: a big, fat NBA contract.
Aboya knew none of this before he came here, and even now he looks at the system from a different perspective. Instead of hypothetical material wealth, Aboya prizes the intangible value of education. Growing up in a humble African setting, Aboya knew only of the promise and opportunity offered in the United States. He cared most about the power and importance of education, and when he chose to leave home, his motivation was completely personal. He wanted a college degree.
“All I knew was, I’ll have the game of basketball to pay for my education,” he said. “That’s all I knew. When you’re on scholarship, you don’t need to worry about paying bills, eating or where you’re going to sleep. All you worry about is practicing and performing.”
His chance came in 2003, when the Tilton School ““ a small academy in central New Hampshire ““ found Aboya on a list of African prospects and recruited him to play for their team. After two years and two state championships, colleges started to court Aboya.
To this day, all the attention amazes him.
“People flew from Kansas, UCLA, Georgetown, just to come to a little town in New Hampshire,” he said. “Just to see me play.”
Aboya liked Georgetown because of its academic reputation and the legacy of African players. But former UCLA assistant Ernie Ziegler convinced him to visit Westwood. Aboya joined Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, another African recruit, on his first visit to Westwood. They loved the weather and the academic atmosphere here.
But the whole recruiting process puzzled Aboya. He didn’t understand the hype that recruiting Web sites generated, and throughout the process, he kept asking himself, “Why do they want me?” All along, it was he who had wanted to attend college so desperately.
In the spring of 2005, he chose UCLA.
“The whole high school went bananas. People thought it was a big deal,” Aboya said. “For me, it was just picking a school.”
When he met with Donaldson to plan his first schedule, Aboya explained that he was specifically interested in international diplomacy and courses that would address African politics.
“I could just sense there was something different with Alfred,” Donaldson said. “He had a real focus, and he knew that his degree would carry him further than his basketball career would.”
Aboya does not speak to his parents often. The nine-hour time difference makes phone calls difficult, especially during the basketball season. But when he does talk to his family, he almost never mentions basketball. His parents have never seen him play the game. They don’t even know the rules.
So instead they talk about school, classes and his progress. Aboya said his parents take much more pride from that part of his life. They’ll sometimes ask if he has a game coming, but nothing more.
But even with his unique focus, Aboya didn’t breeze through every class. At first, Aboya struggled with a language barrier. He told Donaldson that he could easily articulate concepts in French, but in English he sometimes became confused.
Aboya took classes each summer because he wanted to graduate early. His longest break from school during that span was about 10 days.
He earned a degree in political science after his junior season. In those three years, Aboya’s life was simple. He studied and played basketball. He didn’t start for the Bruins in any of those seasons, but coaches and people in the UCLA Athletic Department grew to love Aboya’s passion for basketball and for life at UCLA.
In an interview with the Daily Bruin last spring, athletics director Dan Guerrero said that Aboya, of all the athletes at UCLA, inspires him the most.
“I love how he brings it every single game, and every single practice,” Guerrero said. “He’s not heralded, he wasn’t a starter, but he brings the kind of grit and tenacity that I like to see.”
Aboya faced another difficult decision following his junior season. He seriously considered leaving UCLA to play professional basketball overseas. That option would allow him to support his family financially. Donaldson said Aboya wanted to do what would be best for his family.
The opportunity to earn a master’s degree ultimately convinced Aboya to stay, but first, he had to apply to the program.
“We didn’t want Alfred to get any special accommodations,” Donaldson said. “It would hurt everybody to have Alfred in the program and see him fail. They took his GPA and his test scores and all that, and he was given admittance. … His academic record showed that he does belong in the program.”
The two-year master’s program is selective, serious and prestigious. Aboya is one of about 40 students in his class. Many of them have families; some have other jobs. The school’s brochure says accepted students usually boast a GPA of 3.5 or higher as undergraduates.
“I love to be at the top,” Aboya said. “Growing up, nobody in my family had ever been to college. That was the most important thing. But now that I’m in college, it’s about setting the bar higher. That’s what motivates me now.”
“˜It’s tough’
Aboya hates caffeine and he won’t touch coffee.
After a loss to Arizona State last month, he went to watch Mbah a Moute, his friend and former teammate, play in an NBA game at Staples Center. He didn’t have much fun that Saturday night. He couldn’t stop thinking about the loss.
He returned to his apartment late in the night and woke up just a few hours later to read for his class. At noon Sunday, he met with this reporter for an interview. He stopped briefly to watch a UCLA gymnastics meet that afternoon.
Then he hit the books again.
“I do get tired,” he said. “But I think it’s just a mental thing. When you say you’re going to stay up, you stay up. You don’t need caffeine or anything like that.”
Fall quarter tested him. He wouldn’t say it was harder than he expected, just very, very tough.
He lives alone. After so many years away from home, he’s learned to appreciate solitude. The quietness allows him to work most efficiently, he said, and he’s needed every free minute to study. Aboya’s courses fall quarter were daunting: microeconomic theory, statistical analysis and applied policy analysis. He had never taken economics courses as an undergraduate, so that class was especially challenging. Aboya met with a tutor six hours each week. Most of his teammates have one hour of tutoring per week, Donaldson said.
Everything about Aboya amazes Donaldson. It’s one thing for a walk-on, or role player, to emphasize academics so strongly, but it’s much different for someone like Aboya, who is now one of the most important players on one of the best college basketball teams in the nation. The Bruins rely on him for most of their low-post scoring. He’s also one of their best defenders. And UCLA coaches expect Aboya to perform at a high level in every practice and every game.
“It’s a lot of stress for one person to handle,” Donaldson said.
Last quarter, Wednesdays were toughest. Aboya had class all morning, practice from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and then more class until 9 p.m.
“I could see how drained he was, mentally and emotionally,” Donaldson said. “The coaching staff and I would talk about it. It was very hard for him to give his all in the classroom and then go to practice and give his all in practice and play games.”
But Aboya found a way. He had worked tirelessly on his jump shot last summer, and he is a much better scorer this season. He still plays the brilliant defense that has become his trademark.
“I just love watching him play,” coach Ben Howland said. “It’s so fun to watch.”
Aboya, now a 24-year-old senior, has also embraced a leadership role this year. Earlier this season, he noticed some freshmen frustrated at a lack of playing time and offered them encouragement. Donaldson said Aboya also inspires his teammates to stay on top of their schoolwork.
“You can talk to him about anything: about school, or just about confidence in general,” freshman guard Jrue Holiday said. “What we were going through, he went through as a freshman. … He was really trying to help us through it.”
Holiday said that Aboya’s ability to balance school and basketball surprises no one on the team.
“As soon as you meet him, you can tell,” Holiday said. “He’s so sophisticated and mature.”
Aboya may be the perfect person to advise the freshmen about playing time. He likes to talk about opportunity. He played only a contributing role in his first three seasons, and even though he is now putting up his best numbers, he explains that he’s not necessarily playing basketball much differently. It’s really a result of starting and playing 26 minutes per game, and only coaches can control that.
He approaches the possibility of a career in professional basketball with similar logic. He knows it is not in his control.
When asked how he can gauge his NBA draft stock at the end of this season, he said he did not know exactly how the process works. He compared it to his prep school days, when he received an invitation to an All-American camp. He had no idea where the letter came from, what the camp was or what it meant.
“Even right now, I’m still learning how the whole system works, the draft and all that,” he said. “It’s something I don’t worry about.”
For now, he just wants to win. He said he is most focused on the Bruins’ stretch run, which continues tonight against USC.
But when the season ends, Aboya will confront another big basketball decision. He could be drafted by an NBA team, or receive a contract offer from a European team. He said when that time comes, he’ll step back and consider all his opportunities. No matter what, he’ll have the option to remain a student at UCLA for one more year and earn a master’s degree.
“Some players, the NBA is their do-or-die; they have to be there,” he said. “It’s not mine. If I go, great. If I don’t go, great. That’s why I am maximizing all my opportunities.”
And that word, opportunity, is one Aboya understands in any language.