Long journey pays off for Texas forward

06:05 AM CDT on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
By CHIP BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Texas freshman power forward Alexis Wangmene came to the United States four years ago from Cameroon not knowing a word of English. But he seems to have caught on to life in America.

Actress Jessica Alba is proof.

Walk into Wangmene's dorm room at Texas and there's a poster of the four guys from the hit HBO series Entourage and a poster of Alba from the movie Sin City.

“I love her, man,” Wangmene said, laughing. “I was so mad when I heard she was pregnant. But she's in Hollywood, so it's only a matter of time before she breaks up with whoever she's with. By then, she might be ready for me.”

He was joking. We think. Wangmene does know actress Eva Longoria. And she has offered to introduce him to Alba. She was joking. We think.

All of this is a roundabout way of getting into how Wangmene came to be at Texas, how the second-seeded Longhorns will be counting on him Friday night against the massive front line of third-seeded Stanford in the NCAA Tournament, and how he came to know Longoria.

In the summer of 2004, San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford and his wife, Beth, were in Johannesburg, South Africa, for Basketball Without Borders, the NBA's global basketball development and community outreach program.

The Bufords wanted to invite one of the players from Africa to come live with them in San Antonio. The fact that Wangmene, now 19, was the same age as the Buford's son, Chase, now a walk-on at Kansas, meant Wangmene could serve as the big man on Chase's high school team at Alamo Heights in San Antonio.

“Unfortunately, the UIL and immigration laws don't fit together very well,” R.C. Buford said.

Mom's reluctance
More on that in a minute.

First, Wangmene had to persuade his mother, Germaine, to give her blessing for him to go to the United States. Wangmene's father, Mang'ikri Theophile, a high-ranking officer in the Cameroon army, was supportive of his son's learning and living in another country, especially one where opportunity in basketball abounded. But Wangmene's mother said no.

“And when your mom says no in my country, it's bad luck,” Wangmene said.

Wangmene, a member of an African under-19 all-star team, thought he might have made a mistake on his trip to live with the Bufords. A scheduled two-day trip to Texas turned into six days because of flight delays and detours that took him to the airport in Ivory Coast, where an armed riot broke out.

“We were all ducking bullets at the airport, and I'm thinking it's the bad luck from my mom not wanting me to leave,” Wangmene said. “The next time I went back to Africa, I spent all my time with my mom making sure she was happy with me being in the U.S.”

Wangmene was finally reunited with the Bufords on Christmas Eve 2004. At first, he communicated with C.C., the Bufords' daughter, and Chase, who is two months older than Wangmene, by playing Cameroon vs. the United States on EA Sports' FIFA soccer video game.

The Bufords also brought in a tutor to teach Wangmene English and how to drive. Wangmene also watched American movies to help learn the language.

“One time, I caught him watching Gigli, and I said, 'We've got to change this,' ” Chase said.

Chase said that within two months, Wangmene could speak enough English to communicate. Unfortunately, plans to have Wangmene play basketball with Chase at Alamo Heights were prohibited by the UIL. So the Bufords enrolled him at San Antonio's Central Catholic High School.

“Getting Alexis into public school was impossible,” Beth Buford said.

Wangmene finished his high school career at Blair Academy in New Jersey because R.C. Buford wanted better competition for him. Before Wangmene left for Blair, however, he narrowed his college choices to Florida, Virginia and Texas.

Part of the family
This season, Wangmene has developed into a reliable power forward who will be counted on Friday night against Stanford's 7-foot twins Brook and Robin Lopez.

R.C. and Beth Buford call Wangmene their son. Chase and C.C. call him their brother. Wangmene calls the Bufords his family and can't go too long without Beth's chicken pot pie.

Wangmene has also gotten to know all of the Spurs because of R.C. He speaks French, his native language in Cameroon, with Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who grew up in France.

Parker introduced Wangmene to Longoria, who has offered to help Wangmene with his quest to meet Jessica Alba.

“Let's hope he worries about his books and his team as much as he worries about Jessica Alba,” R.C. Buford said.

And what if Texas and Kansas both end up in San Antonio – of all places – for the Final Four?

“I wouldn't want that to happen because I wouldn't want Lexi to lose to us again,” Chase said.

Spoken like a true big brother, picking on a younger brother.

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