The secret to this Hoo’s basketball success? A Darden School student’s Nigerian cooking
Even from the dimly lit higher bowl of John Paul Jones Arena, Sunmi Alade did not have to squint to spot her favourite University of Virginia males’s basketball participant.
Down there, amongst a sea of towering athletes, one stood – actually – above the remainder.
Cavalier followers know him as Ugo Onyenso, UVA’s dynamic 7-foot senior heart, however Alade was calling him one thing else.
“Tall man! Tall man!” the 5-foot-3 Alade shouted in the course of the Wahoos’ win over the University of Miami on Feb. 21. “That’s my customer!”
It was a truthful boast. Since an impromptu assembly in August, Alade, a 31-year-old Darden School of Business scholar, has served her fellow countryperson a rotation of do-it-yourself dishes from their homeland of Nigeria.
Snail. Stewed goat meat. Jollof rice.
That’s what’s fueling among the finest shot-blocking seasons a Cavalier has had in current reminiscence.
“Eating good food,” mentioned Onyenso, who was named to the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Defensive Team on Monday, “it gives you a different kind of energy. You’re energized. Your brain is functioning at a high level. You’re ready to go.
“And that’s all thanks to her.”
A whiff of home
Onyenso admits he can’t make Nigerian food, but “I can eat it.” And he can find it – no matter where his basketball career has taken him.
While at the University of Kentucky from 2022 to 2024, he’d read on visits from his Wisconsin-based uncle, a “great cook” and his only relative living in the US, to fill his refrigerator. And while at Kansas State University last year, he’d travel two hours to Kansas City for an occasional taste of home.
But at UVA, his third and final collegiate stop, all Onyenso had to do was walk outside his apartment near North Grounds on a late summer day and take a whiff.
“This smells familiar,” he thought to himself. “I know this smell from a mile away.”
So, he followed his nose until he came upon the clubhouse at his apartment complex, where the Darden School’s African Business Organization was internet hosting an occasion accompanied by a becoming unfold of jollof rice, a vibrant dish mixing peppers, tomatoes and onions with a wide range of spices. Onyenso requested to meet the chef.
“And then I saw him,” Alade mentioned. “The entire time, I was like, ‘How tall are you?’”
Onyenso had questions, too, like, “Is it OK if I pay you to cook for me?”
Alade was flattered.
“I’ve had people say that before,” she mentioned, “like, ‘Oh, you’ll be able to prepare dinner Nigerian meals? I’ll attain out to you.’ And they by no means observe up.
“But Ugo, the next day, sends me a text, ‘What’s up ma’am?’”
Alade had a buyer.
A glad buyer
More than 300 miles separate the hometowns of Alade (Osogbo) and Onyenso (Owerri) in southern Nigeria. While basketball alternatives drew Onyenso to the United States, Alade arrived 9 years in the past to pursue a grasp’s diploma in public well being from Georgia Southern University.
Last summer time, she interned with Xbox in Seattle, and in a number of months, she’ll have accomplished her MBA from the Darden School.
