From Senegal to team leader at OSU
CORVALLIS — Daniel Gomis isn’t sure what he wants to do with his life after basketball. Maybe he’ll be a coach and a teacher. Perhaps he’ll start his own business.
Whether Gomis remains in the United States or returns to his native Senegal — a nation of 13 million people in West Africa — he’ll have the latter in mind.
“I want to make life better back home,” Oregon State’s 6-10 junior center says. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but everything I do will involve Senegal.”
Gomis doesn’t want to be a politician.
“I don’t like politics,” he says. “I don’t like African leaders. They always prove me wrong. They can start out to be really good people, but once they get to power, it’s a whole different story. They’re corrupt. We need better leaders, people who can help our country move forward.”
I’m thinking diplomat, then. A position where Gomis can put his personality and command of four languages to full advantage.
“Working in an embassy would be nice,” he says with a smile.
All of this is in the future, of course.
For now, Gomis’ focus is on earning his degree in anthropology and helping the Beavers continue to be one of the true success stories in college basketball this season.
Gomis, 23 and a team co-captain, may be the most valuable player in America averaging 4.0 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocked shots per game.
“A lot of what Daniel does doesn’t show up on the stat sheet,” says Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State’s first-year coach. “He has been instrumental to our defense. Earlier in the year, we talked long and hard about having somebody who would be our defender of the basket. Daniel has been that guy. He’s hard to score over, he’s hard to get around. He can close out on perimeter players in the zone. He gives all-out effort.”
Tinkle singled out a moment in the second half of the Beavers’ Sunday win over Washington that spruced their record up to 14-0 at Gill Coliseum this season.
“In one possession, he played all five positions of our zone,” Tinkle says. “He was everywhere. He was making up for everybody else. That spills over to the rest of the group.”
Then there are the intangibles.
“He’s a great leader,” Tinkle says. “The guys love him because of his personality. He plays the right way. They’re starting to feed off of that. He is becoming more receptive to their response to his leadership. And he probably does a lot more for us behind the scenes, in the locker room, than we know about.”
That’s because of who Daniel Gomis is, the hurdles he has cleared and the type of person he has become.
“Daniel has brought way more to our lives than we have brought to his,” says Jackie Flanagan, the matriarch of the host family in Sun Valley, Idaho, with whom Gomis lived during his junior year in high school. “He’s an incredible, authentic person. He has the biggest heart. So kind, so considerate, one of the most thoughtful human beings we know. And he has so much integrity.”
• • •
Gomis is the fifth of seven children — five boys, two girls — born to Vincent and Therese Gomis. Through his childhood, his father worked servicing naval boats in France for nine months every year while his mother tended to the children in Thies, Senegal. Vincent Gomis died in 2009, when Daniel was in high school.
It was a disciplined environment in a Catholic household.
“My dad didn’t let us kids go out a lot,” Gomis says. “And even when he wasn’t at home, my mom wouldn’t let us go. When he was home, every Sunday my dad would knock on our doors and say, ‘Get ready for church.’ We’re a real close family. Every holiday is a big celebration. Cousins, grandparents, everyone comes. I miss having those family-bonding experiences.”
Senegal is predominantly Sunni Muslim.
“We were surrounded by Muslim people, but we get along well,” says Gomis, who remains true to his Catholic faith. “We have so much mutual respect. When Muslims have their holidays, they cook food and bring it to our house. We do the same for them. I learned a lot about the Muslim faith and their beliefs.”
French is Senegal’s official language, but Gomis also fluently speaks Mandjak, a family dialect, and Wolof, the native language of the Wolof people of Senegal.
Gomis took English in middle school but was lost when he arrived in Sun Valley, Idaho, as an exchange student at age 17.
“It was challenging,” says Gomis, who now speaks English superbly. “I couldn’t understand people at all.”
Gomis understood the language of soccer, though, from the time he was a young boy.
“Loved it,” he says. “Still do. I’d wake up every morning and play soccer.”
Gomis added basketball to his repertoire at age 11, but didn’t get serious until he was 15 and approaching 6-6.
“I got to a point where people were looking at me and saying, ‘You should be playing basketball,’” he says. “One guy from my hometown was playing for Valparaiso. Everyone was comparing him to me. They said, ‘If you focus on basketball, you might end up going to the United States and getting an education and maybe playing in the NBA.’ That’s when I said, ‘Why not?’”
Gomis left home to attend school and play basketball for the SEEDS Academy in Thies.
“I said, ‘Mom, I want to try to do my own thing,’” he says. “I had that vision. I wanted to be independent.”
It was during a summer tournament with the SEEDs Academy that Gomis met Nate Pomeday, who would become an assistant coach for Craig Robinson at Oregon State. The meeting with Pomeday — then coaching at Wake Forest — would plant the seed for Gomis to become a Beaver.
A program called “One Dream Foundation” sent Gomis to Sun Valley, where he attended the Community School and lived with the Flanagans, Chris and Jackie, and their three sons.
The Flanagans had been considering taking on an exchange student for five years. Gomis was their first.
“It was absolutely fabulous,” says Chris Flanagan, who works in ranching and real estate. “We lucked out with Daniel. I’ve heard stories where you can get not a good exchange student. He has become like our fourth child. Our three boys are his brothers now,” Jackie says. “I’m his American mom, and I love him to death. Daniel came to us as a real shy boy from Senegal. He is very comfortable in his skin now. He has a strong constitution. He won the hearts of the entire school. He is respected by everybody. He left an impact on every person he met up with.”
“Daniel is a very kindhearted person,” Chris Flanagan says. “He’d do anything for you. When he first got to our house, he didn’t know how to speak English. My wife talks a mile a minute, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ but didn’t understand a word she said. As time went on, he learned the language, and he got along quickly with our boys. This is his U.S. home, and we’re his U.S. family.”
The Flanagan parents have come to Corvallis for basketball weekends two or three times in each of the last two seasons and will fly to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament. For holiday breaks and in the summers, Gomis returns to Sun Valley to stay with them.
“They’re like my family,” Gomis says. “They do everything for me. They’re really good people, always taking care of me. They’re wonderful people. I can’t thank them enough.”
During his time in Sun Valley, Gomis volunteered to teach French and basketball to a fifth-grade class.
“He was a superstar to those kids, and not because he was so talented in basketball,” Jackie Flanagan says. “It was because of who is he is. He embraced them, and they embraced him.”
After the season, the fifth-graders held a fundraiser to raise finances for Gomis to return home to Senegal. Those fifth-graders, who are now juniors in high school, haven’t forgotten him.
“They still talk about Daniel,” Jackie says. “Everyone watches the Oregon State games on TV.”
• • •
In 2009, Gomis played in the Jordan Brand Classic at New York and caught the eye of coach Steve Smith of Oak Hill Academy, a nationally acclaimed landing spot for the nation’s top prep stars in Mouth of Wilson, Va. Over the years, the Warriors have fielded dozens of future NBA players, including Carmelo Anthony, Rod Strickland, Brandon Jennings, Rajon Rondo, Steve Blake, Josh Smith and Jerry Stackhouse.
Gomis attended Oak Hill Academy as a senior and was the team’s starting center. But toward the end of the season, injury problems that would plague him for the next three years cropped up.
He developed a stress fracture in his left leg. While playing pickup ball after returning to Senegal in the summer, he suffered a full fracture of the leg.
By that time, Gomis had signed with Oregon State, borrowing on a relationship with Pomeday.
“The recruiting process was hard,” he says. “I was getting calls from USC, UCLA, Washington State — a lot of schools. It was overwhelming. I couldn’t really speak English, and communication was tough. But I knew Coach Pomeday. He had coached some of my former teammates from Senegal. I met some of the Oregon State staff. They were all nice. I thought, ‘Why not come here?’”
After undergoing surgery in Senegal that summer, Gomis flew to Corvallis in August 2011 and began practicing with the Beavers. One day, he fell, and the rod that had been inserted in his leg bent and shifted. It required another surgery. He was lost for that season and the next.
Gomis was finally able to play during the 2013-14 season as a redshirt sophomore, but was rusty and still not 100 percent physically. During the preseason, he began feeling something in both legs.
“It was really painful,” he says. “I was icing, doing everything I could to help it, and I played through it. But it was hard.”
After the season, X-rays showed stress fractures in both legs.
“The first time (he returned from surgery), I was stubborn,” Gomis says. “I came back too soon. I was really excited and wanted to help my teammates out. This time, I was patient with it. I rested and didn’t do anything for almost two months. I wore air casts on both legs — it was one of the ugliest things you could imagine — but it finally got better. Now, I’m grateful to be healthy.”
Gomis believes diet and vitamin deficiency played a part in his leg injuries.
“I wasn’t eating vegetables,” he says. “I wasn’t getting enough Vitamin D.”
Gomis has had to almost relearn how to run.
“When practice started this season, my running was weird,” he says, smiling. “Coach Tinkle was always yelling at me, ‘Pick up your feet!’ You sort of lose your touch. I just prayed, and now I’m eating more vegetables, and I’m drinking more milk. I finally realized you have to help yourself. Last year after games, I could barely walk. This year, I’m feeling great.”
Gomis missed four games early this season with a shoulder injury, but has otherwise held up physically. Even so, his game has its deficiencies, especially at the offensive end. After a 71-59 loss to Oregon at Eugene on Jan. 3, Oregon State’s coaches were worried about him.
“Daniel was very frustrated by his physical limitations,” Tinkle says. “He felt like he was letting us down. He was starting to think about next year and his future. We told him, ‘Let’s just commit to these next three months. Give us what you have. We’ll control practice time and days off if you need them, but sell out, because we’ll need you. We’ll talk about next year in the spring.’
“It seemed like that was a relief. He has been vital to our success since that game, especially with his maturity and the way he carries himself. It’s exactly what we want this program to be about. We just want him to play his tail off and keep things simple.”
Gomis’ teammates appreciate him. Forward Olaf Schaftenaar, a junior from the Netherlands, lives in an apartment adjacent to Gomis’. They’ve waged a rivalry playing soccer video games.
“Daniel is very aggressive on the court — he plays so hard — but he’s friendly off the court,” Schaftenaar says. “He cares about people. He’s a great guy to be around.”
“He’s such a hardworking guy,” sophomore guard Malcolm Duvivier says. “He brings intensity and energy every single day. It motivates us. He’s the best teammate you could ask for.”
Gomis enjoyed playing for Robinson, lamenting only that he couldn’t have given more to his former coach due to injuries. The experience playing for Tinkle has been a step up.
“Every practice is a learning process,” Gomis says. “We’ve learned a lot this year. Everything is so different from what we used to do. People didn’t expect us to do anything. Everyone on this team is so dedicated, works so hard, and it is paying off. We’re enjoying the time. The coaches are always saying, ‘Enjoy the moment, because it can get taken away from you.’”
Nobody knows that better than Gomis.
“I’m just praying to stay healthy, because you never know what’s going to happen,” he says.
• • •
There is another dilemma Gomis will soon face. He will have just one class to complete in order to graduate spring term. He has another year of eligibility in basketball. He is not sure if he will return.
“I really don’t know yet,” he says. “This team is great. I love my teammates. I would do anything for them. I don’t want to think about it until this season ends.
“You have to know what your body can handle. Right now, my body is feeling great. We’ll see how the body feels and make a quick evaluation about how the season went and decide from there.”
Tinkle knows how he will vote on the issue.
“We’re telling Daniel he is really going to enjoy next year,” the OSU mentor says. “With the players we have coming in and the momentum we can take from this year, he can be a great mentor and a leader to the young guys. It’s going to be a fun group.
“We’re going to talk about it. I know he is concerned about his health, but we think his leadership alone is invaluable. He can go a long way toward sending this program in the right direction. He already has.”
Gomis doesn’t want to get nostalgic, not yet. With what he has gone through, it’s hard not to.
“I’m so thankful for this opportunity to go to Oregon State, every single moment of it,” he says. “People are so nice here. It’s nice that people are praying for you and encouraging you. I do not regret coming here. I’ve loved every single moment of it.”
(February 12, 2015