Basketball and the UW helped Franck Kepnang create a new life far from Cameroon’s sugar factories
A chance meeting at a grocery store in the Cameroon capital city of Yaoundé — where a stranger asked, “Do you know what basketball is?” — set Franck Kepnang on a journey that would transform not only his life but his mother’s, too.
“I still can’t believe I’m here, but my mom can. Amazing things can happen when people believe in you,” the Husky Men’s Basketball center told endowment donors at a recent event.
Franck was a 6-foot tall 12-year-old when that stranger spied him and gave him his very first basketball. The man would become Franck’s mentor, guiding him through the fundamentals of the sport and fueling his dreams for opportunities beyond his small industrial hometown in the Central African nation.
At home it was just Franck and his mother, Hortense Tchuisseu, who worked in the sugar factory. “After basketball found me,” Franck said he trained relentlessly, started to learn English (he already spoke his native French as well as Spanish), and earned a scholarship to a private secondary school 6,000 miles away in Massachusetts.
“Two weeks later, I was on a plane to the U.S. I told Mom I had to go. I have a chance to rewrite my whole family story, my legacy, to do something for all of us,” said Franck.
He was 14 when he left. It was four long years before he’d see his mother again.
Franck transferred after two years to a more academically rigorous boarding school in Pennsylvania, which also had a more high-profile basketball program. Franck became a star on the court and off, advancing his scientific mind before graduating early and fielding more than 50 college recruiting offers.
Two season-ending injuries plagued his collegiate basketball career. But Franck persevered on the court while earning an undergraduate degree in geographical data science last year. He has since entered graduate school to pursue a master’s in informatics — one step closer towards his goal of becoming a robotics engineer.
Hortense retired and moved to Seattle to be close to her son. Aside from his contributions on the court and in the classroom, Franck has also started a foundation to support abandoned children in Cameroon.
“Knowing that I put some good into the world, I put some joy to people’s heart … that I’m helping people and giving back. You know, that’s my ultimate life goal right there,” says Franck.
“Being on scholarship allowed me to be able to secure my life for my family and the next generation. That’s a tremendous blessing. It is one of the greatest gifts that you can give to a student-athlete.”
