City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2016-17 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed so far can be found here.)

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When John Bol Ajak was just a month old, he and his family fled the civil war going on in what is now known as South Sudan, leaving their homeland for Nairobi, Kenya, hundreds of miles to the south.

It was in Nairobi that Ajak spent his childhood, with soccer becoming his first love, much like the majority of his classmates and peers. But as he went through middle school, it became tough to ignore his rapidly growing frame, and so in 8th grade he switched over to basketball.

As his freshman year approached, his potential was too much to ignore. And so Ajak and his family made the decision for him to come across the Atlantic Ocean, where he landed at the Church Farm School, a boarding school of about 140 boys in grades 9-12 located in Exton, Pa.

“It’s like two different worlds,” Ajak, now standing over 6-foot-9 and a burgeoning Division I prospect, said last week. “Coming from South Sudan, coming to America is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, and being blessed to go to a school like Church Farm.

“I grew up in Kenya, so being there, there were no good schools, but getting an opportunity to come to Church Farm School, it was a flip in my life.”

A member of the Dinka people, the largest ethnic group in South Sudan (approx. 4.5 million people), Ajak is following in the footsteps of Manute Bol, Luol Deng, Thon Maker and others from the people who have excelled at the sport.

He’s also extremely intelligent, speaking six languages, with dreams of becoming a doctor one day -- and a heartbreaking reason why.

“I lost a brother when I was young, I was like two,” he said. “That’s always been my motivation, if I was a doctor I could have saved my brother.”

On the court, Ajak is still very much a work in progress, especially offensively, but he’s already made tremendous strides in the year since he first arrived. Extremely long, active and vocal on the defensive end of the floor, he runs the floor like a deer and is starting to establish post position and demand the ball on the blocks as well.

College coaches are noticing -- Saint Joseph’s and Temple have already offered scholarships; high-majors are starting to get involved.

“It gives me motivation to go hard, because...I’m different from the player that I was last year,” Ajak said. “If I can get those offers from what I did last year, and the way I’ve improved, it gives me a lot of motivation, like I can do a lot, get a lot of big-time scholarships.”

Last year at Church Farm, Ajak teamed with sophomore Fred Odhiambo, a 6-11 center, to serve as a young but imposing front line for the Griffins, who went 21-4 and won the District 1 championship -- the program’s first at the AA level -- but lost in the first round of the state tournament.

With Odhiambo now at a prep school in California, Ajak’s making the transition from a freshman new to America to a sophomore who is suddenly the heart and soul of the Church Farm program for the next three years.

“Bol’s role two months ago was going to be Robin, now he’s Batman,” CFS coach Marc Turner said. “I think he’s growing into his role of being our leader, being the guy. I think it’s good for Bol, and he’s finding his way. Every day is an opportunity for him to put a stamp on what he wants for himself, but also for our team.

“Even though he’s a sophomore, he’s our leader,” Turner added. “Leadership has no age, and Bol is qualified to be our leader.”

Surrounding Bol on the perimeter are a trio of seniors and two-year starters in point guard James Lawton and wings Augustus Veniukevicius and Faustas Kulbickas, who work well as a unit.

Lawton is a terrific drive-and-kick guard while Veniukevicius and Kulbickas are outside shooters who can also put the ball on the floor and get to the bucket when the defense is slow on a rotation.

Moving into the starting lineup will be junior wing Abdul-Qayyum Ogunsanya, a strong 6-2 guard who will certainly help out defensively and on the glass.

“We’re going to be as good as our three senior guards,” Turner said. “You work hard to get into a position where you’re a senior, we’ve had a lot of big games under our belt, we know what it takes to play and be successful at a high level and they embrace that.”

Although the PIAA switched from four classifications to six in the offseason, Church Farm will still compete at the AA level it’s been at since moving up from Class A in 2014-15. The Griffins have made it to the state tournament four of the past five years, making quarterfinal runs in 2012-14, but have yet to make it to Hershey and the GIANT Center to play for a chance to win a title.

With Ajak anchoring the paint and those experienced seniors around him, Turner is hopeful this could be the year.

“We’re always looking a little higher; our goal is every year to try to put us in a position to win a state championship,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean we don’t cherish our district championships, but for us the goal is always much, much, much higher. And our guys embrace that challenge, and every year it’s no different.”