Changing Lives Through Basketball: Yoro Sidibe Gives Back to Senegal

Yoro Sidibe will not complain about his situation. The Norfolk State senior cannot emphasize enough how blessed he is to be where he stands today, a Division I student athlete in the United States with two MEAC Tournament Championship rings on his shelf. 

But Sidibe didn’t always have access to a state-of-the-art basketball facility, a comprehensive weight room, or an assortment of full-time coaches and advisors working to help him maximize the potential he’s displayed on and off the court. He didn’t have NBA-caliber role models like NSU alumnus Kyle O’Quinn to look at as examples for success.

That’s where Sidibe’s drive to make an impact on his community comes from: What he didn’t have. Sidibe focuses his outreach on two transcendent projects he created: a shoe drive and a children’s basketball camp. The camp, named Africa NextGen, has given hundreds of kids an opportunity to experience the sport of basketball at a level they have never seen.

“This camp came from a vision of pain, really, from him not having something growing up,” Norfolk State associate head coach Jamal Brown said. “That motivated him to come up with this camp and collect these shoes so he can give them to other young people so they don’t have to suffer the same pains that he suffered.”

Growing up in Kolda, Senegal, Sidibe faced an unusual path to greatness in the sport. Soccer was the activity that consumed his life until the age of seven, but one day he decided to give basketball a try when the opportunity arose to play with his friend. He had a natural skill for the game, faring well in a one-on-one matchup with his opponent, sparking an interest in the sport further.

While his affinity for the game grew rapidly, the access Sidibe had to it did not. Lack of facilities forced him to play outside in the hot Dakar summers – Sidibe remembers playing indoors less than five times in Senegal – and the ground was not ideal for an outdoor court as well. 

Basketball remains one of the few sports that doesn’t require endless amounts of expensive equipment to participate – at the most basic level, you just need shoes, a ball, and a hoop. But those requirements didn’t come easy for Sidibe either. He constantly repaired the holes in his shoes with each hoop session and had difficulty finding a usable ball.

“I remember chasing anybody I knew that had a basketball,” Sidibe recalled.

As he started to learn the fundamentals of the game, he became more and more effective. He had athleticism, height, and a crafty control of the basketball. Still, the sport becoming anything more than a fun activity seemed like just a child’s dream.

“Basketball is not big in Kolda, it’s a small city,” Sidibe said. “So, for somebody like me, I would’ve said there was no way, the odds were completely against me. I needed to have the vision, I needed to have the dream, but I also needed to work for it and find the right opportunity.”

Fortunately for Sidibe, he had family on his mother’s side from Dakar, the capital of Senegal. He would often visit there in the summer, and that’s where an opportunity presented itself. While Sidibe played in a pickup game at a school in Dakar, he caught the eye of a highly respected coach in the area. The short exchange established a connection that would change Sidibe’s life.

“You can really play, you look like Kevin Durant out there,” the man said, in the local Wolof language. “You want to go to the United States?”

“Of course, I want to go to the United States,” an incredulous Sidibe responded.

He wouldn’t head to North America quite yet, but the conversation made Sidibe start taking the sport more seriously, realizing the potential doors it could open for him. The two stayed in touch, and Sidibe began working out with the coach’s teams during the summer, even getting to take two trips to the United States with the team.

Finally, when Sidibe reached the age of 14, the chance to take his career to the next level arose. He enrolled in a prep school in Prague, Czech Republic with a strong basketball program, moving nearly 3,000 miles from his hometown. 

On the court, Sidibe adapted very quickly, averaging over 20 points per game as a sophomore and 25 points per contest his junior. The greater transition came off the court. His international classmates primarily communicated through a common knowledge of English, but Sidibe knew little to no English, causing plenty of awkward interactions in his first year.

“I couldn’t say anything, even to get something to eat I had to make up some sign language with my hands,” Sidibe said with a laugh.

Once the first summer arrived, Sidibe began to take an English class with a relative of one of the team’s managers. The course used interactive teaching methods to make the content engaging, including memorizing words and phrases through song lyrics. After six months, Sidibe had a limited, but competent foundation of vocabulary that made his day-to-day interactions much less stressful. 

That conversation back in Dakar finally came to fruition his senior year of high school, when Sidibe moved to the United States to attend Long Island Lutheran High School. He helped lead the Crusaders to the New York State Federation Class AA Championship and a 25-2 record, finishing ninth in the final USA Today national poll for boys basketball. 

Without many Division-I offers on the table, Sidibe went to multiple camps and showcases to display his skill set in front of collegiate coaches. He performed particularly well at an open gym in front of Norfolk State head coach Robert Jones. 

“With the injuries I’d had, I hadn’t heard a lot from many coaches, but coach Jones basically told me ‘You can play,” Sidibe said. “Seeing that he had some confidence in me and hearing him talk about aspects of my game that he liked, I think that was the first step in making me interested in Norfolk State.”

When he came to campus for his official visit, Jones laid out a “four-year plan” for the 6-foot-7 forward, describing the track Sidibe could follow to help lead the Spartans to multiple championships.

A few months later, Sidibe had joined the team. As he made his collegiate debut in spectacular fashion, scoring 17 points and pulling in 11 rebounds in the team’s season-opener against Greensboro College, he realized he had gotten to the place he never thought was possible. He was a Division I college basketball player.

Setbacks have become almost expected for Sidibe during his basketball career. His body has not always kept up with the strides he’s taken on and off the court.

Sidibe has undergone multiple knee surgeries since he first picked up a basketball, each delivering a devastating blow to his physical abilities and his confidence. 

At the peak of his playing days in Czech Republic, Sidibe suffered a torn ACL and had his ACL reconstruction surgery in November of 2017. He had gotten accustomed to college scouts traveling to Europe to watch him play, but that interest evaporated after his injury. He struggled to play at the caliber he once had with the same level of consistency.

Once he got to Norfolk State in 2019, injuries continued to plague Sidibe.  Although he started the first eight games of his college career, his minutes began to slowly dwindle in his first two seasons. This year, he underwent a second surgery on that same knee he’d injured five years ago. He hasn’t let those misfortunes change his outlook on the experience, though.

“I’ve been used to getting injured a lot, the only thing that keeps me going is why I’m doing what I’m doing, where I’m from and how hard it was to get here,” Sidibe said. “I understand that usually your body gives up before your mind does … You never know, maybe next year I will have the year that will change my life. You just have to keep working, giving up is not an option.”

Sidibe’s ambitious goals outside of his playing career have also motivated him to stay positive throughout this process. An accounting major at NSU, he has landed on the AD Honor Roll every semester of the past two years and he began an internship with the school’s athletics department this spring. This summer, he was one of two NSU athletes to attend the NCAA’s Career in Sports Forum, which aims to present attendees with networking opportunities and learn about many career paths in the sports industry.

All of these experiences, Sidibe says, have helped him realize the ways that he can make an impact back home.

Sidibe’s desire to help those following in his footsteps began long before he reached Norfolk State’s campus. For about 10 years, he has gathered shoes to bring back to his community, wanting others to avoid the relentless issues he grew up with accessing something comfortable and effective to wear on the court.

He has taken the shoe drive to new heights the past few years, receiving help from teammates and coaches. Over the past two years, he’s seen the volume of the shoe drive surge thanks to enthusiasm from many around him.

“He came to me with the idea and wanted some help trying to navigate through the different obstacles that may come,” Brown said. “I just try to be a sounding board for him and try to talk him through things in the process.”

For Sidibe, each pair of donated shoes has special meaning.

“I can give you shoes, but the shoes might be torn up in two or three months because you play on the ground outside,” he said. “But it’s more about me giving you hope while giving you the shoes so that you realize you can go get it yourself. It is like the proverb, ‘if you give someone a fish, you will feed them for a day, but if you teach them how to get one, you will feed them for life.’ That is the whole concept.”

But he didn’t stop there. Entering the NIL era of college athletics, Sidibe decided to use his image to help his home country, creating his own basketball camp. The result looks fantastic now, but it required a lot of work behind the scenes to get it started. 

First, he needed to come up with a name. After brainstorming an abundance of potential titles for multiple days, Sidibe made some progress: he wanted “Africa” included in some way. He also wanted the name to represent the kids the camp was made for. Sidibe eventually came up with the final heading “Africa NextGen,” to highlight the generation of athletes following in his footsteps. 

He checked if that domain name had been taken, and immediately bought it when he found out it was open. Sidibe began to design the website, adding pictures throughout until he eventually came up with a logo. The whole thing came to life in a matter of months.

The inaugural three-day camp took place in Kolda during the summer of 2021, with 50 attendees (25 girls and 25 boys) between the ages of 13 and 19. This year, Sidibe expanded to multiple locations to reach over 150 players. He hosted camps in Dakar (his birthplace), Thies (his best friend’s hometown), before returning to his hometown of Kolda for the largest of them all.

“The support of Norfolk State has been the key [in the camp’s growth],” Sidibe said. “They showed they will support the project as much as they can. My teammates have been super helpful and involved, and Coach Brown has given me great advice.”

Sidibe considers himself a perfectionist, so he hasn’t had a moment yet where he felt like the camp had reached its true potential. He will never forget, however, the sense of fulfillment he received when he saw all the campers dancing one night this summer.

“Basketball is serious to a certain point, but it’s a game before anything,” he said. “Being able to get the kids to have fun at the camp was the key part of it. Seeing the kids having fun, dancing, and laughing was my favorite part.”

Through various sponsors, Sidibe successfully got each of the players in the camp a uniform to wear. One of the kids posted a video of themselves excitedly flashing the numbers on their new jerseys, showing them off to each other. The clip struck a nerve with Sidibe, who missed out on those memories growing up. 

“I wasn’t able to have that, and I would do anything for that when I was a kid,” he said. “But being able to know that I was the one who created that for them, it was such a satisfying moment.”

Efforts like Sidibe’s are a major reason that basketball continues to expand globally year after year. A total of 109 international players from 39 countries made opening-night rosters for the 2021-22 NBA season, including superstars from African countries like Cameroon’s Joel Embiid. 

Sidibe believes the most prominent necessity for the game’s growth in Senegal is organization. He emphasized the difficulties someone from his country interested in basketball must endure to access leagues and camps or acquire a spotlight for recruitment.

“Athletics in general are not getting a lot of funds from anybody, especially basketball specifically, from sponsors to get the organization it needs. That’s where the business aspect comes in, you have to be able to brand it and try to get the population involved in it.”

While putting on these camps, Sidibe found that he could do much more with the funding than expected. He said many people estimated his camp cost upwards of $20,000 to run, when in reality it was just a small fraction of that. Last year, three people funded the entire project and this summer’s camp worked with the approximately $2,000 raised through a nonprofit. He used his local connections to help arrange lodging for the campers, reaching out to people who wanted to make a difference.

“It’s about getting everybody involved,” Sidibe said, “and you have to know where to spend the little resources you have.”

Sidibe’s efforts began long before anyone noticed, but he has finally started to receive some well-deserved recognition for his service. This May, the NCAA presented Sidibe with Accelerating Academic Success Program (AASP) Career Development Award. The honor, given to just two recipients each year, recognizes student athletes pursuing a career in athletics that have succeeded on and off the court.

Although Sidibe appreciated the recognition, the possibilities the award presented to the future of his camp excited him the most.

“It kind of makes everything I’m doing more credible,” he said. “After that, it will definitely be taken more seriously and attract more people.”

The sky is the limit for the camp, and for Sidibe. He hopes to recruit some American players and coaches to help at next year’s camp, providing more name-recognition and far-reaching wisdom. But for now, Sidibe alone provides enough of a draw for eager, young hoopers to show up in droves.

“I think the camp can go as far as he wants it to go,” Brown said. “Yoro’s main objective is not to be a celebrity, but to help. I think as long as you can help someone, you’re going to get some positive things back.”