KEY POINTS:
Until two months ago, Moussa Seck, a soft-spoken, 2.23m (7ft 4in) Senegalese, was a cosmetics street vendor.
But his exceptional height could be his ticket to a career in United States professional basketball.
Everything changed when Seck was "discovered" by a scout in August on the dusty streets of Kaolack, a city 150km east of Senegal's capital, Dakar.
He is now being groomed to follow in the footsteps of compatriot Mouhamed Saer Sene, who was drafted by the National Basketball Association in June as the No 10 for the Seattle Supersonics.
With no serious basketball experience, 18-year-old Seck has joined 19 other promising teenage players at Seed Academy, a free basketball boarding school where Sene has learned the sport from scratch.
"You aren't born with talent, it comes through training," Seck said in hesitant French, sitting in the school's sandy courtyard.
Graduates of Seed, in the town of Thies, 70km east of Dakar, are now playing for professional teams in Spain and Belgium, while five others are attending US secondary schools and universities on scholarship, said Assane Badji, the school's operations director.
The lucky few chosen to attend Seed are mindful they may be one step closer to reaching the so-called "El Dorado" of wealthier Western countries, which tens of thousands of impoverished Senegalese and other Africans have illegally attempted in often hazardous boat trips in recent years.
Founded in 2003 by Amadou Gallo Fall of Senegal, the scouting director for the Dallas Mavericks, Seed's motto is "sports for education and economic development".
Its mission is to "give young people the possibility to succeed in life through sports and education and later to help their families," Badji said.
While studying at a university in Tunisia, Fall met a US Peace Corps volunteer who recognised his basketball talent and helped him to win a scholarship to the University of the District of Columbia in Washington DC in 1989.
A wrist injury ended his athletic career, but he finished his degree in biology and worked at a lab in Washington for five years.
"But something was always pulling me back to basketball," he said.
Serendipity led him to the Mavericks' president of basketball operations, Donnie Nelson, who at the time helped to spearhead the NBA's move to open up to foreign talent.
In 1997 Fall, or "Gallo" as he is known, joined the Mavericks where he has remained ever since. His decision to found Seed Academy "is all about giving back", he said.
While basketball clubs in Dakar have also sent talented players abroad, Seed is "the most structured" institution in a country that has only "at least two" indoor basketball courts, says Senegal's Basketball Federation.
Full-time schooling, coaching, room, board and medical care - which costs from four to five million CFA francs ($11,000 to $14,600) per student annually - are offered for free.
Badji said the Government paid the teachers' salaries but all other expenses were privately financed through support from NBA players and sportswear giant Nike.
Africa already has a strong track record of producing top-level players, starting with Nigerian Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon who was drafted by the Texas-based Houston Rockets in 1984.
But Seed is seen as a unique training ground in terms of mission and financing. Badji said he received emails from young players in Mali, Cameroon, and even South Africa, but so far only one outsider - from Burkina Faso - had been accepted to the academy.
Despite its reputation for excellence, the school training gymnasium is a dilapidated stretch of thin green rubber-like floor covers that are scratched, warped and and torn around the edges.
At one afternoon practice, the gym was lit only by sunlight poking through narrow windows thanks to a blackout, a frequent occurrence in Senegal.
Ale Ndiaye, director of studies, said the scholastic part of the school faced difficult challenges.
In principle, Seed accepts only students already enrolled in school and who pass an entrance exam, but there are exceptions like Seck, a primary school drop-out who was admitted thanks to his unusual height.
Ndiaye said the school took its mission seriously and morning training hours had been reduced to improve on last year's "mediocre" test results.
"They cannot all become professional basketball players," Badji said. "But we hope to have doctors, we hope to have engineers, we hope to have one day a president of the republic. Why not?"
Head coach Idrissa Cissoko added: "We can't expect everything from Europe and the US. We must organise ourselves here in our country first."
As for Seck, he's just happy to have discovered basketball in a soccer-loving nation, saying he always felt too tall to play soccer with his friends.
- AFP
