Nigerian-Born Center Has Traded Travel for Travail

Questions Over Eligibility Are Keeping Edison High's Obi Stuck in Limbo

Kene Obi's basketball development has impressed even those coaches who orchestrated it. (Preston Keres - The Post)

His three-year, three-continent basketball odyssey still lacks a firm destination, and Kene Obi sometimes resembles a man stuck sprinting on a treadmill. No matter how hard he tries, he goes nowhere.

In his first nine months in the United States, the 7-foot-2, 18-year-old Nigerian with NBA dreams has worked exhaustively to assimilate. He has improved his English during a semester at Edison High School in Fairfax County. He bought an iPod and, on teammates' advice, loaded it with almost the entire discography of rappers Tupac and DMX.

Obi's basketball development has impressed even the coaches who orchestrated it. The center has learned to channel anger into aggressiveness. He's an improved rebounder and intimidating shot-blocker. On offense, he bellows when he wants the ball, then charges toward the basket.

So much progress, and yet the general circumstances of Obi's life -- detailed in an article in The Washington Post in January -- remain essentially the same as when he arrived here in October. He still waits for clearance to play his first high school basketball game. He still considers transferring to a handful of Washington area private schools. He still copes with the same uncertainty that has long ruled his life.

"I never know what will happen," Obi said after a summer league game last weekend. "I can't do anything, so I just keep waiting and waiting."

Obi's long journey to Virginia -- through Senegal, France and Belgium -- taught him patience, and he tries hard not to dwell on the logistics of his future. He leaves the complicated details of his basketball life in the hands of his closest supporters: Ugo Udezue, a Nigerian-born NBA agent who helped Obi reach the United States; Melvin Coles, Obi's guardian and the owner of several American Basketball Association teams; and Franklin McMillan, Edison's varsity basketball coach.

The Virginia High School League considers Obi ineligible to play for Edison next season because it believes Obi's foreign transcripts indicate he's already spent four years taking the equivalent of high school classes.

Obi's supporters plan to appeal that decision with the help of a Richmond lawyer later this summer. They contend Obi actually missed a year of high school because of a "hardship out of his control," McMillan said. Obi spent most of 2004 and 2005 training with a basketball team in France, and he could not attend classes there because no local school taught in English, Obi said. He will present that argument to the VHSL executive council, probably in August.

Until then, Obi's summer will continue to revolve around basketball. He has furthered his reputation as a tantalizing prospect while playing for Edison's summer league team (which does not have to follow VHSL eligibility rules) and various Amateur Athletic Union programs over the last two months.

Obi attracted attention from college and professional scouts because of his prototypical NBA body even before he reached the United States, and he's continued to sculpt his physique. Weightlifting has defined his chest and biceps. Running has fortified his legs. He now weighs almost 270 pounds -- about 30 more than he did in October -- and stays in games for stretches of 10 or 15 minutes before requesting a break. He participates in summer agility drills with the Edison football team, improving his footwork and coordination.

His greatest basketball flaw is also his best personal asset. He's friendly and easygoing, a disposition that coaches have worked hard to change. Obi tends to compliment his opponents easily, sometimes marveling at their dunks in pregame layup drills. He lacks the nastiness necessary to be a fierce defensive stopper, so his own coach now works to provoke him.

Before Edison played in a tournament at a team summer camp in late June, McMillan chided and berated Obi for his timidity. Obi, in turn, demanded the ball. He averaged about 12 points, 12 rebounds and 6 blocks during the 10-game tournament. "I realized I was going to have to get him mad every time," McMillan said. "When he gets mean, nobody can stop him."

Said Coles, with whom Obi lives in Alexandria: "Obi doesn't have to score a basket in his whole life to be successful. He was built to be a defensive master. Only a few people in the world have his sort of potential."

Coaches and scouts believe Obi possesses attributes unique even amongst 7-footers. He has a soft shooting touch and makes more than 60 percent of his free throws. Tough passes sometimes slip out of his hands, but he's improved his hand-eye coordination by playing catch with a tennis ball. "I will try anything to get better," Obi said.

One afternoon in June, McMillan walked to his mailbox at Edison and grabbed two letters addressed to Obi, one from Clemson and the other from the University of Connecticut. It had become something of a daily routine for McMillan, managing the recruitment of a player who -- at that time -- had never played in an officiated game in the United States. "Everybody wants to know about Obi," McMillan said, and he's talked about the Nigerian with coaches from a handful of schools, including Tulsa, Georgetown, Old Dominion and Virginia.

Even though most elite basketball players visit -- and sometimes select -- a college before their senior season, Obi has hardly considered that process. Colleges will continue to pursue Obi even if he never plays in high school, but Obi and his mentors believe a full senior season is crucial in his development.

If the VHSL denies his appeal, he may well have to worry about selecting another high school before he considers colleges. He had never watched NCAA basketball until last season, and he still lacks a firm understanding of the college basketball hierarchy. He has played summer league games on Georgetown's campus and enjoyed it, so that school is his current favorite.

When Obi plays for Edison's summer team, he enjoys the same quasi-celebrity status he earned in school hallways during spring semester. Most people recognize him, and strangers approach him because they are intrigued by his height and his accent. The attention sometimes overwhelms him. He jokes that he has too many fans.

And too few close friends.

Obi's Edison teammates regard him, respectfully, as something of a loner. They enjoy spending time with him at practice -- he's funny and goofy, they said -- but they rarely see him on weekends. Because Obi enrolled at Edison from outside of the district, he lives 20 minutes away from most of his teammates. He has yet to obtain his driver's license. "He can't get over here, so he kind of does his own thing," Edison rising junior Chad Rogers said.

When Edison's entire team went to camp last month, Obi often napped instead of playing video games with his teammates. Every Edison player shared a room with a teammate except for Obi. His height necessitated two beds, pushed together in a room of his own.

Solitude fits Obi, he said, and he rarely feels lonely in Virginia. Since he moved away from his family's apartment in the Nigerian city of Enugu in 2001, Obi has never felt so at home as he does now, living with Coles and his family. It's a quiet neighborhood, but he's developed strategies for staving off boredom.

He likes to take walks "just to leave the house," and his favorite destination is a Marshalls less than a mile away. He likes to spend a few hours wandering the aisles and browsing the bargain racks. It's a good way to pass the time, with only one persistent drawback.

He rarely finds anything that fits him.