Akpan has warrior's mentality

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

Nkeruwem "Tony" Akpan has already won battles with snakes, goats, cows, chickens and other animals while growing up in Nigeria.

UH sophomore forward Nkeruwem "Tony" Akpan attacks the basket, the boards and opposing players with ferocity. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"When I go in to a game, I'm not scared of anybody," Akpan said. "Not the crowd, not the other players, nobody."

That attitude has helped Akpan emerge as a relentless defender and the most ferocious rebounder for the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team.

The 'Bows (8-2 overall, 1-1 Western Athletic Conference) will host Southern Methodist (5-6, 0-1) in a WAC game tomorrow at 7 p.m.

Akpan, a 6-foot-8 sophomore forward, is averaging 7.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game as UH's "sixth man." While those numbers might appear modest, it represents tremendous improvement from last season, when he averaged just 1.0 points and 1.9 rebounds per game.

He injured his left thumb during practice yesterday, but is still expected to play his normal role tomorrow as the first "big man" off the bench, behind starters Haim Shimonovich and Phil Martin.

In his last five games, Akpan is averaging 10.4 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

Indeed, Akpan is only 20 years old and has been playing basketball for less than seven years.

As a child growing up in Akwa-Ibom, Nigeria, his first sport was soccer. Basketball came along only after a youth league coach convinced him that all the tall kids in the city were supposed to play hoops.

"I always tell people I understand soccer more than basketball," Akpan said. "When I was younger, all my idols were soccer players."

Basically, he outgrew soccer, although his soccer-dribbling skills with his feet might still actually be better than his basketball-dribbling skills with his hands.

At a chiseled 240 pounds, Akpan is one of the strongest players on the team. Like his body, his attitude is hard.

"I won't back down from anybody," he said. "If the other guy has more skills than me, I use my strength. If he has more strength, I use my skills and smarts. I'll do whatever it takes."

It is a philosophy he learned during the 100-degree summers in Nigeria.

Although Akpan and his family lived in what is considered a big city in Nigeria, they would spend their summers in the tribal areas of their ancestors.

"That's where we learned about our culture," Akpan said.

That meant living off the land. By the time he was a teenager, Akpan knew how to kill animals with his bare hands. As one of his rites of passage, he had to chase down a wild goat and kill it for his family's meal.

"Once you grab the horns, that's it, you have control," he said. "But you have to learn how to do it. The first couple of times, I wasn't concentrating and so I was the one who got attacked. It kept hitting me, trying to head-butt me."

He also learned how to kill snakes — "but only the dangerous ones," he said — and other small animals. Although lions were known to roam the area, Akpan said: "I'm not that crazy."

He was crazy enough to brand an image of a sun on his upper right arm last summer. In essence, the image was burned into his skin, a process that took one hour.

"Of course it hurt," he said. "But it has special meaning to me."

Indeed, Nkeruwem translates to "life," and the sun is the African symbol for life.

For the last five years, Akpan has been chasing a brighter future. He left Nigeria at 16 to pursue educational and athletic opportunities in America. Anthony is his English name, and friends started calling him Tony in high school because Nkeruwem was too difficult.

He played at high schools in three different states, and was eventually recruited to Hawai'i out of Central Park Christian High in Alabama. He had to sit out the first 15 games of his UH career as an NCAA penalty for accepting improper travel benefits during his well-traveled high school years.

Perhaps as a result, he never quite fit into the scheme of last season's record-setting UH team.

"All he needed was a better understanding of the game," said UH associate coach Bob Nash, who works with the post players. "To his credit, he worked hard during the off-season to improve himself."

Akpan took basketball by the horns last summer, lifting weights with the UH football players and shooting jump shots by himself in the gym.

"It's not all about strength with him anymore," Nash said. "I think he's gotten himself more under control. The skills were always there, he just had to refine it."

The Stan Sheriff Center crowd has certainly noticed it. Chants of "To-ny! To-ny! To-ny!" are now commonplace when Akpan makes a big play on the court.

"Maybe it's my smile, I don't know," Akpan said. "But that's a big reason why I enjoy playing here so much. I just love the fans. They give me so much energy."

• • •