Overtold and pretty reliably oversold is the sketchy narrative of the so-called student-athlete, so it’s nothing short of a palpable relief when a story emerges that just can’t be told enough.
So this is about a marginal basketballer on Jamie Dixon’s Pitt team, itself muscled to the margins of the ruthlessly competitive Atlantic Coast Conference this winter. As I do whenever I need the unvarnished analysis about a relatively obscure frontcourt presence, I went to the Chair of Neurobiology, the Scientific Director of the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute, Dr. Peter Strick.
Stay with me.
“I love to see him play because he attacks the game with incredible intensity,” was how Strick weighed in on Aron Phillips-Nwankwo, who is very likely his only student who is 6 feet 7½ and has flowing dreadlocks. “Aron has some inside moves and a nice jump shot from the outside, but he is at his best when he is boxing out an opponent from getting a rebound. Aron is inserted into the game when the team needs great defense against some of the strongest big men in the ACC.”
For a 4 p.m. tip today against No. 10 Louisville, there are bound to be plenty of faculty in the Petersen Events Center audience, plenty of men and women with brains that are plainly capacious. But Dr. Strick might be the only one who sees Phillips-Nwankwo flash talents that have never been nor would ever be described as marginal.
“Aron is a truly special student; he goes through hours of training, attends classes, studies for exams and still creates time to do neuroscience research,” Strick said. “He’s studying the neural circuits involved in generating voluntary movement, [which are] critical to the acquisition and performance of motor skills. And these circuits are the ones that are most disabled in Parkinson’s disease, ALS and other movement disorders.
“His goal is to go to medical school to become a physician. He is just the type of person I want as my doctor. The medical school that captures Aron has a real winner.”
Not yet 23, Aron was born in Baltimore to an American mom and a Nigerian dad who met when they were students at Morgan State University. He told me his uncle travels to Africa, and his father spent all his life there before leaving for college, but Aron says not much was ever said in his home about Nigeria, perhaps because it has never been confused with the happiest place on earth.
From his mother’s determination, he says, he had always been focused forward anyway.
“The determination that I grew up with is from what she told me,” Aron was saying before practice the other day. “I have a goal that I’ve set, that I want to reach, and she taught me to push through when I’m tired and don’t want to do stuff, to do everything possible to get things done.”
And then she died.
Stephanie Phillips worked at Johns Hopkins University as a customer service agent in the Department of Medical Education. She watched her only son and his perfect 4.0 grade point average at Baltimore City College High School decline a full ride at Hopkins to pursue a hoop dream, serious as he was about his studies.
Just when his three years under Dixon were about to yield some significant playing time last winter, Aron’s mom had a recurrence of the breast cancer that had been in remission for 10 years. He missed a chunk of Pitt’s 2013-14 schedule watching her decline, and her death was a setback in every conceivable way, the least of it related to playing time.
Small wonder that when little-used senior Phillips-Nwankwo sparked the struggling Panthers to an urgently needed win last week against Florida State, the Pete convulsed with emotions so that its roof nearly blew off.
The man Dixon said had improved more in five years than anyone in his experience played 12 minutes that night, had 7 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal and jerked the Panthers out of a 41-41 tie to a 46-41 lead.
Had that never happened, had he spent the balance of his Pitt athletic career quietly at the end of Dixon’s bench, he still feels he’s in the right place.
“Oh most definitely,” he smiled. “The experiences I’ve gotten — I’ve been overseas [with the team], traveled a lot, and the lessons I’ve learned from the stress of doing basketball and being pre-med and neuroscience — with all that, I wish it didn’t have to end.
“In terms of what I’ve learned and what I’ve gone through, I think Pitt really challenged me in my major and prepared me for medical school. I came in as a biology major and didn’t really like it as much as I thought I would. The summer after my sophomore year, I did research in Dr. Strick’s lab, a neuroscience lab, and I really liked it so I decided to switch my major to that.”
So soon enough, Phillips-Nwankwo will graduate with degrees in neuroscience and Africana studies. He will apply to medical school and focus on a career in sports medicine, hoping to bring the kind of focused intensity he has brought to Pitt to the treatment of concussions as they continue to proliferate in the sports he loves.
He has made a lot of people proud. He really doesn’t have to box out against Louisville today, but he will do it as though his life depended on it.
He is why we tell stories.
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.
First Published: January 25, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
