From Nigeria To Chattanooga: Balogun's Journey Leads To All-America Selections

Elizabeth Balogun, who as a 13-year-old eighth-grader, got on a commercial jetliner in Lagos, Nigeria, and headed off to the distant shores of America.

“I got on the plane and it was going to be a straight trip from Lagos to Atlanta, Georgia,” Balogun said Wednesday. “Later I went to sleep and when I woke up I was still on the plane. I ate, went to the bathroom and was still on the plane.

I thought, ‘Am I ever going to get to Atlanta?’ My brother (Ezekiel) got me to Chattanooga.”

Five years later, Balogun has reached the pinnacle of high school basketball, having made the USA TODAY All-America team announced Tuesday, helped Hamilton Heights to runner-up finishes in back-to-back national tournaments in New York and will head back to Atlanta in the fall as a member of the highly touted 2018 Georgia Tech women’s No. 7-ranked recruiting class.

“I’m extremely happy that Mr. (Duke) Stone (the school’s headmaster) gave me the opportunity to come here and play basketball and be a student at Hamilton Heights,” Balogun, 17, said. “I’m more excited than nervous about going to Georgia Tech. I’m ready to play in the ACC.

“Hamilton Heights is not like a regular high school. We traveled a lot and only had one home game, so I’m ready for college. I’ve done my work in school and as a student if you don’t pass you don’t play. I learned that the hard way. When I was in eighth grade and my freshman year, I missed a couple games because I wasn’t passing. I got the message.”

Other players joining Balogun, who averaged 17.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists, on the all-America squad are Christyn Williams, Central Arkansas Christian (MVP), Aquire DeCosta, St. Mary’s (Stockton), Hale Jones, Archbishop Mitty (California) and Charli Collier, Barbers Hill (Texas).

Balogun and teammate Jazmine Massengill, who has signed with Tennessee, were voted to the McDonald's All-Americans. 

There is much more ground the 6-foot Balogun has covered in the past five years than just the 5,882 miles between Nigeria and Chattanooga.

Ezekiel has moved on from Chattanooga and is restricted to handing out brotherly advice on Skype. He signed with The Citadel and after one season transferred to Eastern Florida State College, a junior college in Melbourne, Florida. That team recently reached the junior college national championship semifinals where it lost to eventual champion South Plains College (located in Levelland, Texas), 89-76, in the semifinals.

Silas Adheke, another Hamilton Heights product, is also a member of the EFSC team, having transferred from the University of Evansville.

So, it now falls on Elizabeth to look after her younger sister, Ruth, a sophomore who has made the same transition from Nigeria to Chattanooga.

“Ezekiel helped me a lot,” said Balogun, the No. 12 prospect by Blue Star and No. 17 by Prospect Nation. “I didn’t talk much to anyone when I first got here, except my brother. He would tell me what to do. There were still times when I’d cry every night, but then I would see my brother at school and he would boost me up.

“It was really hard for me at first. I missed my family and my mom had passed away before I came to the United States. It was almost like being by myself. Now, I tell Ruth not to stress about anything. If she’s down, she can come talk to me. I’ve been in her shoes. She understands where I’m coming from. She can come to me any time and I will help her. Having Ezekiel was a big thing for me, so I’m there for her.”

Balogun, now one of the top-ranked high school wing players in the country who received her first scholarship offer as a freshman, said her mother, Justine, died about a year before she came to Hamilton Heights following a two-year battle with cancer.

Her mother instilled in Elizabeth a not-so-subtle emphasis for basketball and academics. The approach was right to the point: school first, basketball second. 

And losing her mother was a crushing blow to a young girl on the fast track to her teenage years.

“That was really tough,” she said. “She got on me all the time to do my schoolwork when all I wanted to do was play basketball (her father Mark is a coach back home). She would tell me I was going to be a good basketball player, but I had to work as hard on my schoolwork and be a good student.”

Elizabeth was at school when her mother passed.

“I got back home and there were a lot of people in front of the house and inside,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘What are all these people doing here. And, why are they crying.’ My auntie Eunice told me my mother had passed. I didn’t have a chance to tell her how much I loved her, and that was hard.”

Keisha Hunt, a single mom and the Lady Hawks’ coach, took the Balogun sisters into her home and under her wing.

It took Hunt’s dedication to help Elizabeth through the first months of her time at the small private Christian school on Hickory Valley Road, said Duke Stone, the school’s headmaster.

“One of her biggest issues,” Stone said, “was learning how to take things a little more seriously. Nigeria has no concept of time. They’re hard workers, they come and go, but they don’t punch a time clock. Here time is a precious commodity. She had to adjust to being here and there and it took her awhile to get that down. Having Ezekiel here helped her in that regard.”

Balogun, one of three Tennessee players to sign with Georgia Tech, realizes her adjustment to life in America would have been more difficult had Hunt not played such an important role in her cultural transition.

“Coach Keisha is a good coach and a really good person,” she said. “She has taught me a lot about basketball and things away from basketball; things I never knew. I thank God I had her as my coach and my mom.”

The stakes were high for the Baloguns for making the journey to Chattanooga and Hamilton Heights Christian Academy, Stone said.

“We have a mantra,” he said. “We have a spiritual purpose to what we’re doing. Secondly, we have not only an opportunity to change a student’s life, but also to change their family legacy. That’s a plus for us and we feel good about seeing that happen.”

The Balogun sisters have traveled the same path from Lagos to Chattanooga. Mark Balogun, their father, operates a basketball academy in Nigeria and Lindsey Davis, from Atlanta, frequently travels to Nigeria for work and that’s how Hamilton Heights originally made connection for bringing Nigerian youngsters to Chattanooga in pursuit of their athletic and academic goals.

Getting to America can be a frightening adventure. Typically, the family and Nigerian village help out with trip expenses and Hamilton Heights takes over its charge of the student-athlete’s well-being while here.

“They are put on a plane and have to deal with changing flights, if that occurs,” Stone said of travel arrangements. “Elizabeth actually made the trip with Ezekiel and that made it easier on her. Nigeria is a British Colony, so they speak English with an accent. This is such an opportunity for them they’re willing to take the chance to come over here.”

Balogun’s father came to Chattanooga when she signed with Georgia Tech and recalled how much she enjoyed seeing him again.

“That was a big deal for me,” she said. “I have always been very close to my dad.”

The closest thing to that “big deal,” was five years ago when Elizabeth Balogun finally got off the plane that ferried her from Nigeria to Atlanta.

(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)