Aguek Arop will blow out the candles on three more birthday cakes before he dons a Big Red basketball jersey for the first time. The 15-year-old Omaha South sophomore is the youngest player ever to commit to the University of Nebraska basketball program.
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In the meantime, he will be recuperating from another kind of blowoutโthis one to his knee. Arop suffered a season-ending injury in a recent pre-season practice.
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At least his downtime will give the native of South Sudan an opportunity to work on rehabilitating his nickname.
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โYou know the scene in the old Disney movie where Bambi slips and slides on the ice?โ asks South High Coach Bruce Chubick Sr. in describing the vision of a spindly, wobbly, all-elbows-and-knees form of chaotic locomotion. โHe seems to spend most of every practice on the floor,โ Chubick adds with a chuckle. โPart of it is his all-out style of play and part of it is the fact that his other senses havenโt caught up with the fact that he has grown so rapidly toโฆalmost 6-foot-5 now. We hope he has a couple more inches to go before he hits Lincoln.โ
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Arop, flashing a wry grin, explains that coach has it all wrong.
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โMy nicknameโthe one I likeโis just Gwookie. Thatโs allโฆjust Gwookie,โ says the young man whose name is pronounced uh-GWOOK uh-ROPE. โCoach is always joking with me that I need to โwatch out for the line,โโ as if the white grid outline of the courtโs floor were some insurmountable obstacle to vault. โI run hard. I play hard. Sometimes I end up on the floor,โ he adds with a so-whatโs-the-big-deal shrug.
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Living down a nickname and learning to get around in a cast may seem like significant challenges for any teen, but thatโs nothing compared to the danger Arop and his family faced in war-torn South Sudan before fleeing to find refuge in the United States before eventually settling in Omaha.
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โI never could have seen myself here and in this position when I was a little kid,โ Arop says. โI started playing basketball in the 4th grade after we got here and now it is really important to me to be successful. I went down to Lincoln when I was in 8th grade. I was already excited about the program and coach, and that was all it took to know I wanted to play for Coach Tim Milesโ (see related story on page 172).
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Arop is a polite, well-mannered sort of young man, but that doesnโt mean he is incapable of some playful theatrics. He revealed his decision to commit to Nebraska in a meeting with Miles in Lincoln. With his parents in tow, bear hugs all-around followed after Arop dramatically peeled off one T-shirt to reveal another.
brโIt said โAll Inโ on that shirt,โ Arop beamed. โIโm all in for Coach Miles and Husker basketball.โ