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Emmanuel Adoyi isn’t typically moody.

Diligent, yes. Hard-working: no doubt. How many teenagers spend hours each Saturday morning cleaning their family’s bathroom? Or regularly hit basketball courts to battle opponents usually bigger by at least four inches and 30 pounds, and never back down despite all those elbows crashing into the jaw? Granted, Adoyi has seriously quick hops. Still, nobody accuses him of being the up-and-down type.

But some days when the senior walks Little Rock Parkview High’s halls, his sadness is unmistakable. Other students ask what’s wrong. “I tell them ‘Nothing.’ I don’t want to tell them why,” Adoyi says. “It would make them sad.”   

This has nothing to do with a girl. Nothing to do with a car. Or grades. This has everything to do with being an 18-year-old who hasn’t seen his two parents and seven siblings in three and a half years, and doesn’t know when he will see them again. “Sometimes, I’m just homesick, you know. I want to see my family.”

This is the life Adoyi chose. Nearly a decade ago, he dreamt of leaving Nigeria for America and all its promises of a better life. “I just didn’t know how I was going to get here.” That answer became clearer when around age 11 he stepped away from soccer to play more basketball with his brother, older by 11 years, and friends. It was slow going at first — “Any time I caught the ball, I walked” — but Adoyi’s progress has picked up considerable speed in the last few years.

Five years after his initial foray into organized basketball, Adoyi was starting at center for the Parkview Patriots, one of the state’s most prestigious programs. He’s held on to his spot for three consecutive seasons, no doubt aided by long arms and hands that could envelope an entire basketball. Parkview won a state title last season and Adoyi — a team captain averaging 9.25 points, 8.75 rebounds, 2.12 steals and 1.08 blocks — will play a vital role in its chances of repeating at the state playoffs starting next week.

Although “only” 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, Adoyi is unquestionably Patriot coach Al Flanigan’s man in the middle.

The story would have played out much differently, however, if four years ago Adoyi wasn’t in the middle when Don Williams’ granddaughter laid out three photos on a table in his southwest Little Rock home.

Williams had a prayer, you see.

He wanted more in an already full life. Three grown children, a medical supply technician job and numerous youth league coaching gigs, and still, something was missing. He said he and his wife wanted to “be a blessing” to an African teen — someone for whom they could provide a home and opportunity for a good education while teaching Christian morals.

Williams, sports buff that he is, also wanted a basketball player. And so, after his granddaughter laid out photos of three athletic Nigerian teens willing to come to America, he was glad when she randomly selected the center one, said to be 6-foot-6. “I am thinking if he is 6-foot-6 at age 14, he’ll be 6-foot-10 or 6-foot-11 by the time he’s 18. Then it would be easy for him to get an athletic scholarship with the academics behind him.”

In September 2008, a Delta employee’s phone call ruptured his expectations. After a transoceanic flight, Adoyi had been accidentally routed to Kansas, not Arkansas, and had been waiting alone in a strange airport for Williams, whom he’d never seen, to appear. The Delta employee said “This is a very, very wonderful young man,” Williams recalled. “I said ‘Well, how tall is he?’ She said ‘About 6-1, 6-2.’ I said ‘This must be the wrong kid. I’m looking for a 6-6 kid.’”

Adoyi’s size still surprised Williams the next day when they finally met at Little Rock’s airport. “He had these tight little pants. He’s about 90 pounds with a little hood on and flip-flops on,” Williams recalled. “At that point I had to accept it. Because I can’t just say ‘Go back because you’re 6-2.’ I have made a commitment to you to house and educate you.”

Adoyi dominated his ninth grade season at Word of Outreach Christian Academy, putting up around 30 points and 20 rebounds per game. “They thought he was like [Hakeem] Olajuwon,” Williams recalled. Off the court, though, he struggled. And not just because of usual Nigeria-to-America cultural speed bumps — stuff like seeing a carwash for the first time, or stifling the urge to call a cafeteria’s sweet potato casserole “foofoo.” Emmanuel had been born with a severely cleft lip and palate, conditions linked to prenatal malnutrition.

The malformations included a hole the size of a golf ball in the roof his mouth, making it difficult to pronounce “p” and giving his voice a nasally quality. Williams realized Adoyi, whom he legally adopted, needed help with a problem that’s repaired for most Americans at 10 weeks of age. He called his friend Jimmy Tucker, an orthopaedic surgeon who then rounded up other doctors to help Adoyi at little to no cost. One surgeon, Kris Shewmake, said Adoyi’s cleft palate was one of the largest he’d seen in 20 years of practice.

The surgeries have helped. “I got more friends, and I communicate more,” Adoyi says. But one last operation is needed to totally close his palate’s hole. Because of that hole, and his thick accent, he’s at times difficult to understand. So, Adoyi has learned to save his questions for teachers until after class.

Where that education continues next fall is still up in the air. Adoyi, who has a 3.5 GPA, is considering majoring in computer science or business. His dream is to play for the Razorbacks, even if that means walking on. To develop the perimeter skills he’ll need in college basketball, Adoyi often drills with Parkview teammate I.J. Ready, a 5-foot-10 Nebraska commit.

Whether Adoyi’s next stop is Fayetteville or not, he wants a career in America. He wants to financially support his family in Nigeria, and to regularly visit them. Adoyi expects to again embrace the parents who sold much of their land for the money to send him so far away. As a boy, he left them with every intention of returning a man.  

Basketball moves

Adoyi isn’t the only African to move to central Arkansas and leave his mark on local basketball. Other prominent examples include:

• Rony Tchatchoua (Cameroon) — In 2004, he arrived in Little Rock with fellow Cameroonian Yann Tientcheu to help usher in a golden age for Little Rock Christian Academy. A businessman seeking to help promising Cameroonian students had originally routed the 6-foot-5 Tchatchoua to an Arizona State University coach, who then dialed up his father, former Little Rock Christian coach Dewey Pennell. A 2005 state title and 2006 state runner-up finish ensued. Tchatchoua then spent two seasons at the University of New Hampshire, playing about 15 minutes per game. In 2009 he made what might have been the year’s longest transfer, landing in Phoenix, Ariz. to play for Division II Grand Canyon University — alma mater of longtime NBA coach Paul Westphal and Horatio Llamas, the NBA’s first Mexican-born player.

• Gaby Ngoundjo (Cameroon) — The burly 6-foot-7 forward arrived at Little Rock Christian a year after his Cameroonian teammates. The sophomore quickly established himself as an emerging star en route to the Warriors’ 2005 state title in Class AAA. As a senior, he averaged 14 points, nine rebounds and 3.9 blocks a game. Ngoundjo then played scant minutes for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for a couple seasons before transferring to Grand Canyon University, where he rejoined Tchatchoua.

These Cameroonians’ legacy can still be found in the rulebook of the state’s governing body for high school sports. After their dominant run, the Arkansas Activities Association closed a loophole allowing foreign exchange students to compete in extracurricular activities for more than a season.

• Akinyemi Olumide Solanki (Nigeria) — He’s shaped far differently from “Big O” most Arkansans are familiar with, but the reach of this skinny 6-foot-10 version still presents a major challenge to his downtown Little Rock college’s opponents — just as Oliver Miller did for the Arkansas Razorbacks 20 years ago. Solanki, a sophomore, has played center for the Arkansas Baptist College Buffaloes since summer 2010. He averages about 10 points, eight rebounds and three blocks this season.

For more on Adoyi and central Arkansas basketball, visit thesportsseer.com