Seventeen years. Confusing self-confidence. A maturity at the height of its 2.11 meters. And a career that is knocking harder and harder at his bedroom door. Ulrich Kamka Chomche has one obsession: to conquer the NBA. He’s not joking, driven like never before by this ultimate desire to sweat for the most prestigious basketball championship in the world. “I want to become the next reference. Inspire children, launches, at the edge of a luminous parquet floor, the adolescent, who punctuates his sentence with ” the life “, another way of saying “I swear to you”.
For five years already, this young Cameroonian has been a resident of the NBA Academy Africa in Saly, a seaside resort located more than an hour south of Dakar. It is in this corner of Senegal that the American League established, in 2017, its first training center in Africa by renting part of the Diambars Institute, a structure training the country’s football elite.
This 15-hectare estate a few minutes from the beach is an “island” surrounded by barbed wire. Inside the walls, palm trees, swimming pool, classrooms, refectory, dormitory and a huge gymnasium, out of the ordinary for this part of the world. Under this air-conditioned dome, the blue-white-red logo of the NBA is duplicated almost endlessly, flocked on the walls, on the two parquet floors that come from the United States, on the Wilson balls or even on the jerseys. training.
“Made in the USA” accent
Here, it’s not America but almost. We speak to each other in English with a “made in USA” accent, like Roland Houston, the technical director of the center, originally from Philadelphia, passing French or Wolof off as foreign languages. “With us, it’s 100% American culture”, attests the Senegalese Sidy Sall, one of the seven coaches.
This 30-year-old from Kaolack, who studied in Tennessee before playing pro in Bolivia or Bahrain, adds: “Young people no longer need to leave the continent to have elite preparation. If my generation had had this kind of structure, we would have more African players in the NBA. I would have dreamed of opening such a center in my country, but the NBA did it. It’s up to us to maintain it. »
The objective of the academy is to detect the greatest potentials of the continent, to provide them with an advanced education and to train them in very high level basketball. “But also to help them become men, insists “coach Roland”. We have talented, hard-working, hungry and smart young players. We give them the tools and opportunities to succeed. »
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