BleedGopher
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per Ski-U-Mah Magazine:
“To me, being in a different place and being around different people of different cultures and ethnicities and all those backgrounds different to my own, that has been a blessing. And I’m trying to take advantage of every opportunity to meet new people and learn from them.”
— Bakary Konaté
Konaté’s path to Minnesota would take half a basketball game to fully explain, and involves four languages, three continents, two families, and one very dedicated student and athlete.
He was born in Bamako, Mali, and counts 14 siblings among his “extended” family. At age 12 he started playing basketball rather than his original love, soccer, and that corresponded with an epic growth spurt. Two years later he traveled to Spain with his brother to explore options for secondary school, and wound up attending IES La Vega de San Jose on Grand Canary Island.
Konaté was still raw as a high school player, but in four years averaged nine rebounds, 7.5 points, and one block per game, and he played for Team Mali in the Adidas Nations Basketball Tournament in Chicago. He spent an additional year at Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kan., where he focused on raising his SAT scores and English proficiency. The summer prior he caught the eye of coaches from a number of Division I colleges. Among them were Rick Pitino from Louisville (which had recently won an NCAA championship), who said, as Konaté recalled, “I think we are interested in you.”
On an official visit to Louisville, Konaté met Pitino’s family, including son Richard, who had just won the NIT title in his first year coaching at Minnesota. When the Louisville ship sailed without him, one thing led to another and Konaté wound up visiting Minnesota, where he loved the U and the “kind” people.
Intertwined with all of this was a relationship Konaté’s family had with Jeffrey Kollar of Sharon, Pa. Some 18 years ago, Kollar had watched a ‘60 Minutes’ segment on the Lost Boys of Africa. The piece moved Kollar. The following day he talked with a friend from college and declared that, “Somehow or another, I’d like to help.”
That notion turned into a concrete idea—to recruit, in a sense, a bright young African child who could earn a collegiate scholarship in America. The goal, said Kollar, was to “get someone a full education so that they could take those skills back to Mali, put them to use, and change lives.”
His first “recruit” was Ibrahim Konaté, Bakary’s older brother, who came to Pennsylvania when he was 15 and went on to play college basketball for Boston University. Ibrahim earned a math degree and added a master’s degree. He is now teaching in Ohio.
Kollar developed a relationship with the Konaté family and thought, “This worked so well, let’s see what we can do with his brothers or sisters.”
That connection has worked six times now, and Kollar considers himself a second father to Konaté, about whom he gushes.
http://www.skiumahmagazine.com/home/2017/3/30/bakary-konat
Go Gophers!!
“To me, being in a different place and being around different people of different cultures and ethnicities and all those backgrounds different to my own, that has been a blessing. And I’m trying to take advantage of every opportunity to meet new people and learn from them.”
— Bakary Konaté
Konaté’s path to Minnesota would take half a basketball game to fully explain, and involves four languages, three continents, two families, and one very dedicated student and athlete.
He was born in Bamako, Mali, and counts 14 siblings among his “extended” family. At age 12 he started playing basketball rather than his original love, soccer, and that corresponded with an epic growth spurt. Two years later he traveled to Spain with his brother to explore options for secondary school, and wound up attending IES La Vega de San Jose on Grand Canary Island.
Konaté was still raw as a high school player, but in four years averaged nine rebounds, 7.5 points, and one block per game, and he played for Team Mali in the Adidas Nations Basketball Tournament in Chicago. He spent an additional year at Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kan., where he focused on raising his SAT scores and English proficiency. The summer prior he caught the eye of coaches from a number of Division I colleges. Among them were Rick Pitino from Louisville (which had recently won an NCAA championship), who said, as Konaté recalled, “I think we are interested in you.”
On an official visit to Louisville, Konaté met Pitino’s family, including son Richard, who had just won the NIT title in his first year coaching at Minnesota. When the Louisville ship sailed without him, one thing led to another and Konaté wound up visiting Minnesota, where he loved the U and the “kind” people.
Intertwined with all of this was a relationship Konaté’s family had with Jeffrey Kollar of Sharon, Pa. Some 18 years ago, Kollar had watched a ‘60 Minutes’ segment on the Lost Boys of Africa. The piece moved Kollar. The following day he talked with a friend from college and declared that, “Somehow or another, I’d like to help.”
That notion turned into a concrete idea—to recruit, in a sense, a bright young African child who could earn a collegiate scholarship in America. The goal, said Kollar, was to “get someone a full education so that they could take those skills back to Mali, put them to use, and change lives.”
His first “recruit” was Ibrahim Konaté, Bakary’s older brother, who came to Pennsylvania when he was 15 and went on to play college basketball for Boston University. Ibrahim earned a math degree and added a master’s degree. He is now teaching in Ohio.
Kollar developed a relationship with the Konaté family and thought, “This worked so well, let’s see what we can do with his brothers or sisters.”
That connection has worked six times now, and Kollar considers himself a second father to Konaté, about whom he gushes.
http://www.skiumahmagazine.com/home/2017/3/30/bakary-konat
Go Gophers!!