http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqxa0O7WzGM

He dropped to one knee and drew back a deadly arrow,/and a dreadful twang rang out from the silver bow.
Homer’s “Iliad” translated by Stephen Mitchell, as quoted and discussed in “Word Craft: Found in Translation” Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, November 12-13, 2011

It is not an every day occurence to meet a seven-foot Nigerian dressed in a red-and-blue rugby shirt, so this asute and amiable water hare took the opportunity to mix it up a little, in front of the water cooler, at Stanford’s Cantor Museum Cafe Thursday. It turns out my mark was Ugonna Onyekwe, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year for Penn and now a fledgling music producer. So I talked turkey for a minute with this Super Eagle/Quaker and then we traded digits. I didn’t offer that digits for me could mean the fact that I  averaged a tiny point-one-seven points per game (0.17 or 0.2) — four points in 28 games in my entire varsity high school career — whereas he scored 1,762 points, second best all-time for Penn, and was a two-time Ivy League champion). We traded digits which meant we followed up later by text and then by phone, and I am doing the modern and digital thing by putting this all together on the web.

But it wasn’t until I searched for info between my first and second attempts to ring him that I realized the full extent of his collegiate prowess, or even the half of it. The first thing one finds in the leading search engine about “Ugonna” is a 360-degree dunk Unyekwe unleashed on rivals Princeton during his freshman season in 2000. In actuality, Ugonna Onyekwe, while not in the Penn or Big Five Hall of Fame — for shame!!– is in the top ten all-time for his school in scoring, games played, blocked shots, free throws, rebounds and steals. He ranks alongside such fellow Quakers as Corky Calhoun (Phoenix Suns), Michael Jordan (heir of Air Jordan), Walt Frazier Jr, Koko Archibong, Howie Dallmar (the former Stanford star, who enlisted in the army and then was stationed in Philly, so he transferred), Perry Bromwell (I saw play) and John Edgar Wideman (later a Rhodes Scholar, an author, a professor, a writer, and father of a Stanford women’s star Jamilla Wideman).

Sophia Hollander of the New York Times described Ugonna’s zen qualities, his lack of emotion even after performing jaw-dropping (from the perspective of fans, teammates and the opposition). It also described him as being a marketing major who made gospel and soul demo tapes in his apartment.

This is raw stuff, as any literal version must be, with no life in the language. At this point I begin to listen for they rhythm (a music that I hear before the words themselves come into focus in my ear), and line by line, sometimes after a minute, sometimes after 10 — magically, it seems — the word begin to configure themselves, my hearing creates what I want to hear, the pen starts to write, and I am a fascinated witness.

As a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year, Ugonna must rank with Bill Bradley, Gus Broberg, Dave Gavitt and Rudy LaRusso as Ancient Eight all time great. Maybe someone who saw him in his prime can write something as powerful as John McPhee’s tribute to Bradley, “A Sense of Where You Are”

http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Where-You-Are-Princeton/dp/0374526893

Like my former high school teammate Kent Lockhart, Ugonna had a tryout with the New York Knicks.

My teammate Lockhart pick #6 for the Knicks, #119 overall

I noted the recent review of Harvey Araton’s saga of the historic age of the championship Knicks, the team that featured Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, Jerry Lucas, Dave DeBusschere, Earl Monroe and Walt “Clyde” Frazier.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Garden-Was-Eden-Captain/dp/0061956236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321133857&sr=1-1

I woke up with ideas that Ugonna could be as big as Bob Marley, and filled a page of notes at the local chain cafe. A lady walked in with a faux vintage “Rocky” shirt, something about Apollo Creed (the Muhammad Ali archetype played by Carl Weathers, to the Chuck Wepner based underdog played by Sylvester Stallone) and 1979. But when I read Stephen Mitchell’s column about the Illiad and Apollo, my strong regard for Ugonna and his musical upside morphed in mythic terms.

I see Ugonna as the archer, setting his sights on the music biz. I would think there is a huge crossover between basketball fans and the music community movers and shakers that could help Ugonna get his bearings (“get his bearings” sounds funny when talking about a guy who was said to perform 360 dunks with his eyes closed).  And although his play was flamboyant, the New York Times Sophia Hollander for one also noted a stoicism and zen quality to Ugonna. In our brief interaction, he let on that its been tough going so far.

I hope I can be helpful. I am going to send him a list of people I met during my Philadelphia minute (when for example, I befriended Ryan “Honus Honus” of Man Man when he was a barrista at Last Drop, and took a UArts course with Aaron Luis Levenson).

It reminded me of the time I ran into Roger Craig in front of Wells Fargo and offered the tidbit that the son of Julius Erving was a music manager; Roger’s said his son was on his way to Philly for a tryout with the 76ers, but that music was his son’s “Plan B”. “Thanks, man.” the former Niners great said. “I’m gonna ring Julius on that account.”

Not to give myself too much credit but I do find some incredibly exciting prospective projects; most don’t pan out to Titanic proportions. But there was also something in Mitchell’s discussion of finding his words — the music, the magic — that rang true for me as I thought of ideas that might help Ugonna.

That Ugonna played in Spain makes me want to hook him up with my Barcelona music buddies Sam Lardner and Pedro Hermosilla. That he played in Israel makes me want to suggest to him going straight to the head macher (who doesn’t know me from Moses), Lyor Cohen. Ugonna was visiting a friend in Palo Alto he met in Israel when they met at the trainer’s table. On his recent visit he shot around and lifted at the new JCC — didn’t get any reports if he set the standards there with any dunks — next time. Next year.

Maybe his story plays out like “Sense of Where You Are” mixed with “What is the What”, Dave Eggar’s account of a Dinka immigrant.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Autobiography-Valentino-Achak-Deng/dp/1932416641

A propos of getting to the nature of adulation, and comparing 8,000 fans at the Palestra to what it’s like doing showcases and open mics on the come, maybe Ugonna might also look into Scott Raab’s book on LeBron James:

Musically, he should ask for a shoot-around with Michael Franti (ex-USF player) and JC Brooks, a very tall up-and-coming soul singer I met at Bottom of the Hill last week, signed to Bloodshot and The Agency Group. Or Alex Kadvan, the manager of Sharon Jones and Antibalas (the group featured in “Fela”).

As I do with every Nigerian I have met in the last 11 years, I recounted for Ugonna the time I brought Femi Kuti and band to the Cubberley Center in Palo Alto.

And I told him my “I am four bounce passes from the President” riff based on the fact that my teammate Lockhart played with Arnie Duncan in Melbourne, who plays with Barack Obama (and is Secretary of Education and a former Harvard staff — could we get Ugonna into that same game?)

Who knows — if his music rises to the level of his hoops, maybe someday Philadelphia will build a monument next to the one they did for Sly. (Although, to keep on topic, Ugonna Onyekwe (oh-NICK-way) should emulate Sly Stone not Rocky Balboa. Also, if it is not obvious, Stephen Mitchell who’s writings inspired my estimation of Ugonna is not to be confused with another Mitchell, Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell, SF’s playground legend, and subject of a documentary, who I saw in person in a dunking exhibition on the Panhandle (Golden Gate Park) in 1990 or so. Ugonna is only 6′ 8″ — I rounded up to calling him a “seven-footer” by poetic license. In real life terms six-eight is basically seven feet, but obviously in basketball per se in conjures up a different image. Ugonna seems to be a 3 or 4 not a 5 — although he did get mad blocks. But he is definitely more well-rounded than the most famous Dinka (Sudanese — yes I am drifting a few hundred miles) shot-blocked the late great Manute Bol. I am 5′ 11″ and three-quarters of an inch, barefooted but I claim, on my CDL everywhere, more than a thousand times since age 16, and have almost convinced myself, that I am six feet even. Ok?

Although I would advise him, for multiple reasons, to try to simultaneously develop his own act, craft and stage presense, for now he is focused on helping as producer and writer his sister, who performs as Dobi Kwe: