Windsor coach speaks out on recruit scandal
WINDSOR, ONT. • Catholic Central boys’ basketball coach Peter Cusumano had some suspicions that Jonathon Nicola looked older than 17 when he first arrived, but the South Sudanese native had all the right answers to his questions and the documentation to back up his claims.
Posing as a 17- year- old since last November, it now appears Nicola is actually 29.
“He’d been vetted twice by government officials and arrives with all his documents,” Cusumano said Friday, breaking a weeklong silence.
“Is the school supposed to call Canadian Border Services and tell them they got it all wrong? We have over 400 kids here ( Catholic Central) who were born outside the country. We don’t have the resources to deal with that.”
Cusumano said Nicola arrived at the school in late November and produced a passport, birth certificate, a student visa and immunization papers and answered all the questions he raised.
Nicola would still been walking the halls of Catholic Central Secondary School but for a 2007 application to attend a private high school in Jacksonville, Fla. U. S. officials uncovered it while processing a visa request by the 29- year- old in early December.
Nicola had applied to attend Jacksonville Arlington Country Day, which has had a number of Sudanese- born basketball players, and that application had a birth date in 1986. He ended up not going to the school because he failed to secure a U. S. student visa.
On his recent U.S. application made at the American consulate in Toronto, Nicola claimed he was born in 1998.
He had a second interview recently with U. S. officials and was finger printed before being ultimately rejected for the visa he applied for in December.
Nicola’s story has resulted in an international media feeding frenzy that has engulfed the Windsor- Essex Catholic District School Board and Cusumano in particular.
“What’s been tough to take are the insinuations that I knew his age all along,” Cusumano said. “If that was the case, I’d be an idiot for taking him to the U. S. em- bassy to get a visa knowing he had false documents.”
Nicola was taken into custody Tuesday by Canadian authorities after being contacted recently by U. S. officials.
Nicola’s journey to Windsor began a year ago when he applied for a student visa from the Canadian Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
It took him six months to obtain his visa. He arrived in Toronto Nov. 23.
Having watched silently for three days at the Catholic school board’s request while the solid reputation he’d built over a lifetime took a battering, Cusumano said he felt compelled to defend his name.
“I’ve helped kids for years. It’s got nothing to do with basketball championships,” said Cusumano, who cofounded Core City Hoops in 1988 to provide inner city kids a place to play competitive basketball.
“I don’t ask for any accolades. It’s not for championships. I just want to help kids. Then this happens and I get (screwed).”
Cusumano has visited Nicola a couple of times at the Southwest Detention Centre since the South Sudanese native was arrested Tuesday. He’ll meet with him again on April 26.
“I’m angry he lied, but I understand how desperate he was to get out of there,” Cusumano said. “We can’t understand that l evel of desperation here. He really is a good kid who caused no trouble at all.”
Cusumano said he felt compelled to speak out to defend his reputation after the story turned into an international sensation.
Major U. S. t el e vi s i on networks, Reuters wire service, Internet news sites and newspapers such as the Washington Post have all contacted him.
“It’s really impacted my family,” said Cusumano, who has two adult children. “My wife is crying. She’s horribly upset by all this.
“She agreed to open our home to help this kid. We took him in as one of our own. He was included in all our family activities. This is very hurtful. Not just Jonathon lying, but by the way my name is being portrayed out there.”
Cusumano said the accusations that he recruited Nicola are ludicrous.
“I’m not flying to Sudan to look for players,” Cusumano said. “I don’t have billboards over there saying 1-800- CallCus.”
Cusumano was contacted about Nicola by Sudanese coach Deng Dawol Manyang after Manyang had bumped into Cusumano’s friend and former NBA scout Greg Dole in Africa.
“They were looking for place to put this kid,” Cusumano said. “Greg said, ‘ I know a coach in Canada that’s good at developing young players.’ At the time, our son had gone to Alberta to work full time and we thought the timing was right because we had an extra bedroom.
“Now, we’re implicated in this because we were generous enough to share our home. I’m complicit in some way. Nothing could be further than the truth.”
I’M NOT FLYING TO SUDAN TO LOOK FOR PLAYERS.