The Incredible True Story of Blondy Baruti

by Blondy Baruti

  “Go back to school,” Terry urged once more, when he called me a second time. “We will figure everything out.”

  It was much too late for that. I was already on the bus, with a plan that did not go beyond getting as far away as possible, and trying to find a benevolent coach, one who would understand my plight and might be able to offer assistance. But if not? I was on a bus to nowhere.

  For two days, along endless highways, stopping at seemingly every little town along the way, I rode the bus, hunched over in my seat with a hoodie pulled over my head to hide the shame and fear that was etched upon my face (and to disguise myself from law enforcement and federal agents whom I presumed to be in hot pursuit). I had no money and no food. I had only a backpack with some clothes in it, along with my Bible.

  After many, many hours, the bus stopped in Memphis. Everyone got off, while I remained in my seat, just as I had at every other stop. I figured we’d be on the road again shortly, but that was not the case. When the driver noticed that I had not departed, he approached me and asked for my ticket. I showed it to him, and he explained, very patiently, that my connection would not be leaving until the next morning. It took a long time for him to get this point across through our language differences, but eventually I figured it out. As the other passengers left the bus station to go home or to find a hotel room, I wandered around for a while, until I was asked to leave.

  That night I slept outdoors, in a parking garage, huddled against a wall, hoping no one would see me and that I would not be arrested for vagrancy. I was tormented by thoughts of all the people I had hurt and disappointed. Terry and Laurie were worried sick about me; and what of my family back in the Congo? I thought about the day I left, and how happy I had been. I was going to work hard and become successful, which would make everyone proud. I was going to be a professional basketball player and make so much money that I could bring my entire family to America, and buy them all houses in which to live. That was the dream.

  Instead, here I was: homeless and penniless, sleeping in a parking garage—an illegal immigrant who could not even last two months at prep school.

  I felt weak and ashamed. And utterly terrified.

  At 6:30 the next morning, I boarded another bus. Roughly four hours later, after several more stops, we arrived in Jackson, Mississippi. Although lonely and disoriented, and painfully hungry after two days without food, I was relieved to feel the comparative warmth upon my skin. But it was still April, and even in Jackson that is not a good time of year to be without shelter or food. I reached into my backpack and pulled out my phone. I thought about calling Terry and asking him to come and get me. I would apologize for being so soft and stupid, and I would do whatever he thought was best—including going back to Golding. Maybe I could make things right with the coach. I had friends there, at least—other Africans who understood the challenges of adapting to a new culture and a new school. Perhaps I had been too quick to run away.

  I stared at the screen of my phone. It was black. I tried to turn it on. No response.

  Oh, no . . . the battery.

  Suddenly things had gone from bad to bleak. Not only had I exhausted the charge on my phone, but I had left without a power cord. And I had no money to buy a new one. This was not good. Suddenly I was completely untethered. I had only a minor grasp of the language and no concept of local geography or custom. I had no place to sleep and no way to acquire food.

  But then, from across the bus terminal lobby, I saw someone staring at me. He was a black man, perhaps fifty years of age. He began to walk toward me, as if he knew who I was, and as he drew near, a smile came across his face.

  “Blondy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m Audie Norris. How was your trip?”

  It occurred to me at that moment that I did not even know Coach Norris’s first name.

  “Fine, thank you.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence before Coach Norris finally said, “Well, let’s go home.”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  We walked out into the parking lot. As he opened the car door for me, all I could say was “Thank you.”

  “No need,” he said. And then we drove away.

  Twenty minutes passed, during which we didn’t talk much. I was in the car with a complete stranger—a man I had never met in my life—in a town I had never visited. What if he was not who he said he was? What if his motives were less noble? What would have happened to me? All these years later, I still sometimes ask myself these questions. Was I merely lucky, or was God watching out for me? Eventually we arrived at the man’s house. He pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and asked me to wait in the car.

  “Gotta tell the wife we have company,” he explained with a smile.

  A short time later he and his wife both came out to the car. She was just as friendly as her husband, and invited me into the house.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I am very hungry, thank you.”

  That afternoon, over lunch, I did my best to convey to Coach Norris and his wife the story of my journey, and how I had somehow traveled from the Congo to Jackson, Mississippi, with many stops along the way. He kept nodding and occasionally turning to his wife to say something. After a while it became clear that they had a rather intimate understanding of my circumstances, even though I had not told him much in advance.

  As both an AAU and prep school coach in a metropolitan area, Coach Norris had a lot of experience dealing with players who came from impoverished backgrounds or had educational difficulties. A lot of his players, he explained, had received college scholarships, sometimes with a year or two of prep school along the way. He also said that he had worked with some international players and was familiar with immigration laws and regulations. Some of this I already knew through my contacts, but I did not realize the depth of Coach Norris’s experience.

  “I know what you’re going through,” he said. “I think I can help.”

  Coach Norris and his wife were incredibly sweet and generous. They even offered me the bedroom where their son slept. The son was about my age, but Coach Norris explained what I had been through and asked the boy to sleep in the living room for a couple of weeks while they tried to sort out my rather complicated situation. He was a nice kid and he didn’t mind. We got along great.

  The day after I arrived, Coach Norris took me to a local high school to play some pickup ball.

  “These are pretty good games,” he warned. “Big guys. Grown men. Don’t let them push you around.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  I felt comfortable as we walked into the school, which reminded me a little of Mesa High. But I was clearly an outsider, which the other players let me know with some pregame trash talk. As I walked onto the court, one of the other guys made a joke about my appearance. I was so tall and skinny, and so obviously not an American. I was embarrassed but also angry, and over the next couple hours I took out my frustration on my fellow competitors. Aside from a few practices at Golding, when my ankle wasn’t too sore to keep me on the sideline, I hadn’t played competitive ball in a couple of months. I had almost forgotten what it was like to play in a game where someone is keeping score. Even a pickup game is different from practice.

  On this night I played with ferocity. I was so mad! I was blocking almost every shot. I was trying to dunk everything. And people were like “Who the fuck is this guy? He doesn’t even speak English.” They had no idea what I had been through or where I had been. Growing up in Africa, I had a vision of America as a place where everything is easy. I had heard about Hollywood and Las Vegas. The glitter of New York and Miami. There was abundant wealth in America. All you had to do was find a way to get here and then seize the opportunities that would be laid at your feet. But what I discovered was something else entirely. I was as poor and desperate in the United States as I had been in the Congo. And I was so very angry about it.

  I wa
s lucky to have found Coach Norris. He and his wife fed me and cared for me, and ultimately reached out to Terry and Laurie Blitz on my behalf. Coach Norris explained how his family had taken me in. Mainly, he just wanted the Blitzes to know that I was safe. Terry explained my situation in far greater detail, and with much more clarity than I was capable of providing.

  Coach Norris explained to them that he could help fix my visa, as he had experience in these matters, along with contacts in the Student and Exchange Visitor System (SEVIS), a division of U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under the umbrella of Homeland Security. These were exactly the people I feared; but with an ally in their ranks, helping to clear up a mess that was created by my self-serving cousin, then perhaps everything would be all right. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Not only did they open their home and their hearts, but Coach Norris also took me to the gym almost every day so that I could continue to play basketball.

  Coach Norris talked with the Blitzes, and together they decided that at least for the time being, I should go back to Arizona. So, within a few weeks I was on my way home to Mesa, to the people I now considered family, and whom I referred to as my parents. I wasn’t sure what the future would hold. Since I was still ineligible to play in Arizona, Coach Norris wanted me to return to Mississippi in the fall to attend Genesis One Christian School, a prep school in Mendenhall, Mississippi, where he was basketball coach. There, he said, I could finish high school and have access to academic support and college recruiting. In the meantime, he said, he would continue to work on fixing my visa situation.

  By now it was nearly May, so there was no point in trying to take any classes at Mesa. It was too close to the end of the school year and I was too far behind. Regardless of whether I would be transferring to Genesis One or reenrolling at Mesa (even though I was ineligible to play basketball), it made sense to wait until the following fall and the start of a new school year.

  That spring and summer, I returned to my old AAU team, where I got to play for Coach Ward again. I was so happy to be with my old teammates and living in my old house with Terry and Laurie. Everything was going great. A large contingent of college coaches attended our first AAU tournament. Despite not having worn a uniform since January, I played very well. I don’t know how to explain it. I should have been rusty and apprehensive, but instead I felt comfortable and relaxed. My fitness was pretty good considering I’d only been practicing a few weeks. Coach Ward seemed to bring out the best in me. He was a challenging but encouraging coach, and I loved playing for him. In that first tournament, I grabbed every rebound that came within reach, and blocked shots all over the gym. My shot was not terribly inaccurate, so I settled mostly for dunks and layups on offense. My goal was to have a tireless motor, and to play with great and demonstrable passion.

  Apparently, it worked, because college coaches immediately began reaching out to Coach Ward. I was something of an enigma, because my entire high school career to that point had consisted of only a handful of games. For most Division I prospects, the recruiting process starts in ninth or tenth grade; by the summer after junior year, they’ve whittled down the list of suitors to a handful or already made their decisions. I was eighteen years old and not even sure what grade I was in (although by making up classes I was told that I would still be able to graduate the following summer, despite having missed much of the second semester in my junior year). I had no basketball record to speak of; no sparkling statistical output, no championships or awards, no flashy video with highlights.

  Nothing.

  I was a complete unknown.

  But with each tournament I continued to perform well on what is commonly referred to as the “eye test.” This is exactly what it sounds like: I looked good on the court. I was tall and fast, and I played very hard. Oddly enough, my relative lack of experience was seen not as a hindrance, but an attribute. Coaches liked the fact that I played hard and seemed to have a good attitude (I got along with my teammates, didn’t argue with my coach, and never behaved disrespectfully toward the officials). And they liked my physical characteristics, of course. But what really piqued their interest was the idea that I hadn’t come close to reaching my potential. I was one of the best players on the floor in every game that summer, despite having little experience or coaching in the American style of play. I was considered raw and unpolished—a diamond in the rough. Sometimes a coach will look at a recruit and decide he has already peaked, either physically or in terms of skill. Coaches looked at me and saw a player who would continue to improve throughout his college career.

  A number of Division I programs began recruiting me, but I decided very early that I wanted to attend the University of Tulsa, because that was where my friend Donte would be going to school and playing basketball. Like I said, Donte and I had talked often about reuniting in college and playing on the same team, and now we had a chance to make it happen.

  “I want to go to Tulsa,” I told Coach Ward. “I don’t want to think about anyplace else.”

  Coach Ward just nodded and told me to be patient and to keep my options open. He had been around the recruiting game a long time and understood that things could change quickly. But my mind was made up. In July, during a long bus ride on the way back from an AAU tournament in California, I spoke on the phone with Doug Wojcik, the head coach at Tulsa.

  “Blondy, we’d like you to come to Tulsa, and we’d like to offer you a scholarship,” he said.

  At first, I said nothing. I just sat there with a big grin on my face, barely able to process what I had heard.

  “Blondy?” he repeated. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, Coach. Yes. . . I am very okay.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think I cannot believe it. Yes, I would like to go to school at Tulsa. Thank you very much, Coach.”

  I told everyone on the bus, and we celebrated on the ride home. I called Terry and Laurie and told them. And then I called Donte and shared the good news.

  “Bro, you won’t believe it,” I said. “We’re going to play together in college. You and me, back together.”

  To say we had beaten the odds would be a dramatic understatement. Less than 1 percent of all high school basketball players in the United States go on to play at the Division I level. And now there were two of us on one team who would be receiving scholarships. On so many levels it was remarkable. . . . We talked for a while and started making plans. Finally, everything was falling into place. It seemed almost too good to be true.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  The summer of 2009 was the first time in my life when I felt like a normal, happy high school kid. An American kid! I played a ton of basketball, hung out with my friends, had dinner every night with my family, and generally just allowed myself to relax and feel safe. The upcoming school year was going to be hard. I’d have to take extra classes in order to graduate on time, along with an SAT prep course because my language deficiencies were sure to make any standardized test more challenging. Without a decent score on the SAT, I would be ineligible to play basketball in college.

  But none of these things felt like an insurmountable obstacle. There were so many people in my corner, helping out and trying to ensure that I could chase my dream, that I felt completely confident. At least once a week I called Coach Norris to talk about basketball and school. He said he was still working on my visa issues, but that everything would be okay. He reiterated his belief that I would do well in prep school and eventually have even more offers from which to choose.

  “I don’t want more offers,” I said. “I want to go to Tulsa.”

  Coach Norris laughed. “Well, that’s fine, too.”

  Terry Blitz stayed in contact with Coach Norris throughout the summer, sending paperwork and discussing what needed to be done to acquire a valid student visa that would allow me to attend school in Mississippi. By late July, however, when the visa still had not been approved, Terry became concerned. Like any father,
Terry hid this from me for a while, preferring instead to shoulder the burden himself (along with Laurie). Adding to his concern were phone calls from various college coaches who expressed reservations about my plans for the upcoming year.

  Genesis One, apparently, had come under scrutiny for what can best be termed a distinct lack of academic rigor. In a span of just a few short years, the school had expanded from serving a small primary school population to grades kindergarten through thirteen, the latter being a postgraduate year that is intended primarily for athletes who need a year of maturation or academic support in order to meet college entrance requirements. This is common at prep schools, including even the best of the traditional elite boarding schools, but Genesis One, like some other institutions, had been described by critics as being nothing more than a “diploma mill,” where much of the high school student body was comprised of future college athletes who struggled badly in the classroom.

  There is nothing wrong with a school providing academic support and guidance—indeed, it should be part of the package if you grant a scholarship to a student athlete who, for whatever reason, clearly has demonstrated academic shortcomings. I did not know it at the time, but a small industry had erupted around the recruiting and supposed educating of disadvantaged students who had great promise on the basketball court but significant struggles in the classroom. Some of these schools came and went within just a few years, pumping out Division I athletes and winning championships before suddenly going out of business for financial or accreditation reasons. When media reports in the mid- to late 2000s began highlighting the struggles of some of these graduates after they reached college, or when they graduated but failed to achieve the necessary score on the SAT, the diploma mills came under fire and began to disappear from the landscape. Those that remained were viewed with increasing skepticism by college coaches.