There are two Jahlil Okafors. There is the one you see on the court: all power dunks, spin moves, stare-downs. And there is the one you don’t see. The one who plays chess and the saxophone and the tuba. Who worked stage crew for a musical in junior high. Whose morning alarm, for years after his mother died, was a recording of her voice: ‘Jahlil, Jahlil.’
He was born December 15, 1995, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His father, Chukwudi — known as Chuck — is a second-generation Nigerian American of Igbo descent. His mother, Dacresha Lanett Benton, was a 6-foot-2 basketball force at Carl Albert State College before a knee injury ended her career. They met there on basketball scholarships. As a young child, Jahlil split time between his mother’s home in Moffett, Oklahoma — population 127 — and his father’s home in Chicago.
When Jahlil was nine, he was watching music videos on BET with his sister Jalen when their mother started breathing hard. They thought she was joking. Jahlil teased her — said he was going to steal her Oreos. Then he realized it wasn’t a joke. He called 911. She had contracted bronchitis two weeks earlier and suffered a collapsed lung. She died.
Jahlil called his father. Chuck heard it in his son’s voice — somewhere between a cry and a scream. The only words: ‘Mama. Mama.’ Chuck flew to Fort Smith. At the funeral, Jahlil read a poem he’d written. At the gravesite, the wind lifted, and Chuck spread out his arms: ‘Every time you feel the wind, that is your mom with you.’
Chuck’s own story was a mirror of grief. His mother died of breast cancer when he was eighteen months old. His father, a Nigerian immigrant, raised six children alone. Chuck had been a ‘roughneck’ — stolen car at thirteen, drugs, five high schools in three years, a group home. But when Dacresha died: ‘Without Jah, I’d probably be dead or in jail.’
At Whitney Young Magnet High School — Michelle Obama’s alma mater — Okafor became the most dominant high school center in the country. National Player of the Year (McDonald’s, USA Today, Parade). Illinois Mr. Basketball. Three USA Basketball golds (U16, U17, U19). DePaul offered him a scholarship before he played a high school game. He committed to Duke in a package deal with his AAU friend Tyus Jones. ‘My deepest fear is losing someone else close to me,’ he told Chicago magazine. ‘That’s something I think about way more than I should.’