Purdue target Francis Okoro has plans beyond basketball
More ($): Okoro officially visits Purdue
WESTFIELD — Francis Okoro came to America in 2009 in order to attend college in the U.S., on scholarship if at all possible.
Whether it's next year or the year after, he'll do so, and it'll be especially satisfying for one important reason.
"I don't want to rely on just basketball to get me a scholarship," Okoro said at this weekend's Nike EYBL session in Westfield, "and I'm so glad that I won't have to say that I'm only going to college just because I'm a basketball player."
On the basketball floor, the 6-foot-9, 225-pounder from Normal West High School in Illinois is a nationally touted recruit, carrying lofty national rankings and a slew of high-level offers.
Off it, he carries a 3.7 GPA and an astronomical score of 32 on the ACT, handling school with a purpose and putting himself perhaps in position to move from the 2019 graduating class to 2018 in coming weeks.
The native Nigerian came over in June of 2014 having never really played basketball, hoping to carve an academic future however he could.
"All my family went to school," Okoro said. "My auntie has her PhD and my uncle has a PhD and their sons and daughters all graduated from college and most of them have a Master's or PhD.
"School is just really important to my family and it is to me."
Okoro lives in Normal with his aunt and uncle, Nweze and Emeka Nnakwe.
"I do my schoolwork. I'm not perfect but I try to do my schoolwork after basketball," Okoro said. "Also, my auntie motivates me. She tells me, 'You have to get this grade or that grade.' Any time my grades go down, she's on me and that motivates me, because I don't want my aunt to (get mad) at me.
"She always motivates me and tells me the importance of school because you're not going to play basketball all your life. The longest you might play basketball is 20 years, and then you have to look for something else to do."
Okoro's plan: To study computer science — "anything graphic design, multi-media, something like that" — in hopes of one day becoming an app developer. He "has some ideas" for some basketball-related products.
It was such technology that helped him transition to schooling in the U.S.
Though Nigeria is a primarily English-speaking nation, there were some language barriers when he arrived, Okoro said.
"There were a lot of academic challenges at first," he said, "especially understanding what the teachers were saying, because they were talking fast and with different dialects and I'd try to catch up. I tried to help myself."
YouTube helped him smooth over the rough edges, whether it was further explanation of academic topics or more detail on the basketball concepts that were foreign to him in America at that point.
"I'd take my time to understand," he said, "and take a lot of notes."
That wasn't all that long ago, but now such a long time ago, given what Okoro has grown into as both a basketball player and student.
"He hasn't been playing basketball that long, but for the most part, he's in tune with, and knows, the avenue he wants to take to be successful in life, not just athletically," said Corey Frazier, who coaches Okoro with the Brad Beal Elite grassroots program. "The maturity piece is big for him. He's mature for his age and understands what's going on, and he has a plan to help his family and that's what's most important.
"A lot of guys take it for granted and get an education but they don't really get the education. He's definitely in tune with what he wants to be."
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