Photo from the past could derail dominant HS basketball player's career
A Maryland public high school’s basketball team received a huge boost this past season from a 16-year-old freshman who was born in Nigeria.
The Rockville Rams, who went 2-22 in the 2016-2017 season, made huge strides this year. The Rams won their district and narrowly missed out on making it all the way to the Final Four of the Maryland state playoffs.
A huge reason for the team’s success was Jimmy Sorunke, a 6-foot-10 center who led the entire state in rebounds and blocks per contest.
Though Rockville’s season is over, the team’s coach was optimistic for the future, especially considering the fact that he expected to have the Nigerian star on his team for another three years.
“He had a good season,” Rams coach Todd Dembroski said. “He’s a difference-maker on the court. But he’s raw, and he has some areas that needs to improve, (such as) his footwork. But he’s young.”
But according to a report from Deadspin’s Dave McKenna, Sorunke might not be so young. In fact, evidence compiled by McKenna suggests that Jimmy Sorunke is really Olujimi Sorunke Abayomi, a 20-year-old who will turn 21 in June, before his freshman year of high school is even complete.
Perhaps the most damning evidence is a 2016 photo of an 18-year-old who looks a lot like Sorunke.
The photo accompanied a Nigerian blog post promoting Olujimi Sorunke Abayomi, a student at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic. That institution, known as MAPOLY, serves as the equivalent of a college in Nigeria.
In the post, Olujimi Sorunke Abayomi is listed as an 18-year-old mass communication student whose date of birth is June 11, 1997. Meanwhile, the photo shows him wearing a Peyton Manning jersey and towering over a companion.
As noted by McKenna, the student in the photo looks exactly like Jimmy Sorunke.
Moreover, the profile in question says that the student’s Twitter handle is “baby shaq38,” which is the username Jimmy Sorunke currently goes by on Snapchat.
That’s not all. In 2017, according to Deadspin, Jimmy Sorunke came to the U.S. hoping to play basketball at Huntington Prep, a high school in West Virginia. At the time, he went by the name Olujimi Sorunke.
And in November 2016, Sorunke played in a 3×3 basketball tournament in Nigeria — a tournament that was supposed to only be open to players “between the ages of 18 and 35.” If Sorunke followed the rules, it’s impossible that he’s still only 16 years old.
Joe Boncore, an alumnus of Rockville High, claims to be Sorunke’s legal guardian. However, Boncore has a somewhat shady past when it comes to recruiting basketball prospects out of Nigeria.
“Boncore helped bring Moses Abraham, a mysterious Nigerian prospect who later was found to have taken impermissible benefits from Boncore, and later helped facilitate the arrival of Daddy Echebo, a fellow Nigerian who eventually wound up at Drake,” according to USA Today.
Still, Boncore denied Deadspin’s report. He responded to the 2016 photo from the Nigerian blog by telling McKenna that the profile indicating Sorunke was in college was actually created in an attempt to recruit Sorunke to play at the school.
He also downplayed the fact that Sorunke competed in a basketball tournament that was supposedly closed to those under the age of 18, saying that despite the rules, Sorunke’s teammates were “14 and 15” years of age.
If Sorunke is indeed 20, however, he would not be eligible to play for Rockville, as Maryland public school rules say that players “who have reached the age of 19 years old or older as of August 31,” or who have already graduated high school, are not permitted to compete.
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