Long Way to the Top

It was an apparition, a sight to make the students of the Tilton School question their eyes and swear to sobriety, a sight unlike any since the school was founded in 1845.

It was a snowy morning on the 46-acre campus in rural New Hampshire. As students bundled in heavy winter clothing made their way to class, along came a tall African, gingerly making his way along an icy path in sandals, wearing only a T-shirt and shorts.

Welcome to America, Alfred Aboya. Welcome to the frozen northeast.

To look at Aboya today, strolling the UCLA campus with his Chicago Bulls cap on backward, or stuffing a ball through the hoop at Pauley Pavilion as a freshman reserve on the Bruin basketball team, he seems like any other student-athlete who makes Westwood home away from home.

But three years ago, home for Aboya was the city of Yaounde in his native Cameroon, a country he dreams of leading someday as its president.

It was his talent on the basketball court, where he zoomed up from a club team to earn a place on his country’s national squad, that had earned him acceptance to Tilton, a 210-student college preparatory school in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, about 85 miles northwest from Boston.

Culture shock came the moment he opened his eyes on his first morning at school.

“When I woke up, there was white stuff on the ground,” he said. “All I could say was, ‘Wow.’ I had never seen snow before.”

He quickly discovered that trying to navigate snow in sandals was as difficult as sprinting the length of a basketball court in snowshoes.

Acquiring suitable clothing was only the first step in the Americanization of Aboya. Communicating was the next hurdle.

Once in class, he was asked by the teacher to introduce himself. Still shaky in English, Aboya merely smiled.

He has an infectious smile and he used it often to make friends in those early days at Tilton, until his familiarity with the language kicked in.

He had no trouble attracting friends once he slipped out of his sandals and into basketball shoes. In his first season with Tilton, he led the team to the New Hampshire Class B title.

“He has an unbelievable personality,” said Ken Hollingsworth, Tilton’s athletic director. “He just makes people feel very good about him. He was so humble, never full of himself.

“And on the basketball court he really electrified our school. Whenever his team would play, we would always have a full gym.”

When Tilton needed a win over Winchendon, a Class A school, to qualify for the postseason in Aboya’s senior year, he scored 45 points -- more than half his team’s total -- in an overtime win.

While happy to fit in with the student body, Aboya was also determined to maintain his own identity.

“For a dinner we had at the school,” said Meredith Morin, Tilton’s communications director, “Alfred came in formal African dress. For a group picture, he showed up wearing a pink scarf, as if he needed a distinguishable item to stand out.”

Aboya didn’t have any trouble standing out when it came to college basketball recruiters. But it appeared Aboya had been plucked out of circulation almost before the competition for his services had begun. Lured to Washington by the idea of being in an environment conducive to his future political ambitions, Aboya committed to Georgetown in 2004, his junior year.

End of story as far as UCLA was concerned -- until Georgetown Coach Craig Esherick was fired shortly thereafter.

Given an opening, UCLA didn’t hesitate. A prototype power forward who would fill out to 6 feet 8 and 233 pounds by the time he enrolled in college, Aboya was the type of player Bruin Coach Ben Howland coveted. UCLA assistant coach Ernie Zeigler was put on the case.

“Alfred had what we desperately wanted first and foremost, which was toughness up front,” Zeigler said. “We needed guys who could be passionate, who wanted to play a physical game. Alfred has a zeal to play.”

Not only did Aboya agree to come to Westwood, but he wound up rooming with Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, a fellow Cameroonian.

“When you go to a new place, having someone there you know makes the adjustment easier,” said Aboya, who back home knew Mbah a Moute enough to say hello, but not much more.

They have become close in recent months. Teammates good-naturedly tell of having to ask the pair to turn down the volume on the African music they blast in their room.

Now fluent in English -- as well as French, German and several African dialects -- in a comfort zone and penciled in as a starter heading into his first season at UCLA, Aboya had everything going for him.

Except his knees.

Having already undergone a surgical procedure on his left knee during his junior year at Tilton, Aboya had arthroscopic surgery on both knees before this season. That set him back physically and mentally. Tentative as he tested the knees, he was also hesitant on the court because he had missed crucial time needed to learn the Bruin system.

It was only last week, with roommate Mbah a Moute on the bench because of foul trouble during a pivotal Pacific 10 Conference game at Washington, that Aboya finally seemed to put his basketball struggles behind him, breaking loose for 15 points and eight rebounds, both season highs.

But it wasn’t just the numbers. It was the way he played.

“He’s a big sponge,” Zeigler said. “He wants to do everything Coach Howland wants him to do. But he is good when he can do things instinctively. Last Saturday, with his first extended amount of playing time, he was able to play with reckless abandon.”

However, whether Aboya will play against USC on Sunday at the Sports Arena will be a game-time decision. He suffered a strained groin in practice Thursday and Howland said he would be held out of practice today.

As for the future, Aboya certainly wouldn’t be averse to playing professionally, but he insists even that lofty achievement would be only a stop en route to his ultimate goal.

He’s serious about becoming president of Cameroon, although he admits to having no idea how to make it happen. He doesn’t have political connections. His father, Baliaba, and his mother, Kedi Kofane Angele, worked for the government before retirement, but neither held elective office. His father was a railroad conductor, his mother worked in the financial sector.

But he pinpoints governmental corruption and inefficiency, privatization of governmental services, poverty and an AIDS epidemic as crises that cry for attention in Cameroon.

“I cannot do it myself,” he said. “Only if other people follow me. If I were to play professional basketball, it would boost my popularity. More people would know who I am and that would make my campaign easier.

“There are no guarantees in life, but I want to go back and lead my country.”