Hardworking hoopster puts in time on and off the court
Cougars’ well-rounded forward says free time is an ‘opportunity to do something’
The University of Regina Cougars’ Steve Burrows says Brian Ofori is “the hardest-working guy I have ever coached.”
And that is just on the basketball court.
Away from the sporting venue, the 25-year-old member of the Burrows-led Cougars’ men’s team is just as industrious.
In addition to being accomplished academically, the sixfoot-five Ofori works part time at a psychiatric residence (McEwen Manor), with a real-estate firm (Daytona Homes) and at three local establishments (The Owl, The Exchange and O’Hanlon’s Irish Pub).
Not only that, he also — whew! — finds time to tutor first-year university students, primarily in the languages.
“I don’t know a time when I wasn’t busy,” says the Montrealborn Ofori, who already has a degree in psychology and a certificate in public relations.
“I only started playing basketball when I was about 16. Before that, I played every other sport. I had to go home and help my mom and pick up my little sister, cook, clean ... I’d have school programs.
“To me, free time is an opportunity to do something. As I get older, I kind of think of the notion of resting and using that time to get some relaxation, but there’s always something to be done.
“Someone always needs some assistance. I can do a little extra of this or whatever the case is. Just seeing a block of space that has nothing to do there, to me I’m missing out on a potential opportunity, so I always try to fill that up with something.”
He is also adept at filling up the basket, often in spectacular fashion.
Ofori’s first two-pointer, registered when he was 16 years old and slightly over six feet tall, was a dunk. In fact, every one of the halfdozen or so points he scored during his first organized basketball game was courtesy of a slam.
“The very most that I can say I’ve been doing all my life is dunking,” he says. “Dunking is what I know best. To me, it’s like walking.” Or skywalking, in this case. Despite Ofori’s 42-inch vertical leap, he did not enjoy an immediate ascent to on-court prominence.
In Grade 7, for example, he went to basketball tryouts and was cut. Too short, he was told.
Everything changed shortly after he turned 16.
“That summer, I had an insane growth spurt,” he recalls. “I slept all summer. I didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t do anything, so my hair grew out.
“I came back to school in the fall and I was about 6-1 or 6-2. My hair was braided, so nobody knew who I was. I was like this new kid who came into the school.
“I ran with it. I was that jokester, so I played with it at the time until people saw my name and said, ‘Brian?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s me.’”
From that point onward, he was impossible to miss on the court while playing for James Lyng High School. Post-secondary coaches took notice at an all-star game for high school seniors and suddenly Ofori had options.
He ended up enrolling at Dawson College in Montreal and playing for the Blues in a pre-university college league. After two years at Dawson, he spent the following two seasons with the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers before deciding to transfer to a different U Sports school.
With an inclination to play basketball in the Canada West conference, Ofori sifted through a handful of options before being successfully recruited by Burrows in 2014.
There was only one snag: due to the transfer, he was required by U Sports to sit out one full season (2014-15) before returning to university basketball.
Instead of treating the hiatus as a downer, Ofori began a fourstep process to improve his game. His objective was to improve one crucial element of his basketball repertoire each year, culminating in the current season.
“I told myself that by my fifth year (of U Sports eligibility), I’d be able to score from anywhere on the floor,” he says.
Once upon a time, Ofori was primarily a dunker, rebounder and shot blocker. He joked that a layup was a long-range shot.
But now, he can drain a threepointer or attack the basket for a resounding dunk, often using many of the post moves he painstakingly developed while practising alone in the U of R’s Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport.
Hence the “hardest-working” label from Burrows.
Ofori intends to apply that mindset beyond Canadian university ranks. He is focusing on one postCougars option, without considering any alternatives.
“Right now, I’m so set on playing professionally,” he states. “Will Smith once said that a Plan B will distract you from your Plan A. Walking a tightrope without a safety net will increase your success rate, walking across knowing that you can’t fall.
“I will play overseas. I will make this happen. I can’t even explain how hard I’ve worked to even make this a possibility.”
Once it becomes a certainty, he will honour a promise he made to Sarah Cordice — who moved to Montreal from the Caribbean at 19 and gave birth to Ofori two years later — shortly after committing to the Cougars.
“I went home and I told my mom, ‘My first pro contract, I’m buying you a droptop convertible. It’s going to be red,’” he says.
“I don’t make a lot of promises, but I actually need to make this happen. I cannot break this one promise.”
Why is the convertible part of the promise?
“I grew up in a really rough part of Montreal — low-income housing, government housing,” Ofori explains. “My mom’s still there. She’s now married and she has four kids living in a three-bedroom apartment with her husband.
“I’m probably not going to make millions so that I can buy her a house or whatever, but what I can do at the least is that when she’s away from home, she doesn’t look like we live where we live. That was the mindset behind that.”
The other purpose behind the promise is to demonstrate his gratitude just as emphatically as he dunks a basketball.
“My mom loves me a lot and she did a lot for me,” Ofori says. “She put the right head on my shoulders and she set me on the right path.
“Even now, thinking of a lot of people I grew up with and played with at the time who haven’t been able to escape that cycle also humbles me because, again, it could have been worse. It could have been way, way, way worse.
“I’m never envious of people. I don’t look at the rich family or even the middle class and say that it sucks or get upset about it. It is what it is. Your reality is your reality. It makes you who you are.”
Just seeing a block of space that has nothing to do there, to me I’m missing out on a potential opportunity ...