2009 5 foot 5 inches, 12 years old. Nigeria
2020. 6 feet. 17years old. Los Angeles.
Both Rose Odebunmi.
Growing up in the town of Ado Ekiti in Nigeria was a challenge for this dope girl. She had only played soccer in her life thus far and she ran on the local dirt fields for fun until she thought her feet would fall off.
Then one day in 6th grade at age 12, Rose’s new PE teacher, Ojo Olusegun, who doubled as the basketball coach said to Rose, “Come play for our team.”
I’ll let Rose share it, “I was so shy. I had never picked up a basketball but I went for it. That first practice was the first time I took directions on a court and I felt nervous. Every shot I took went in the hoop.
“My muscles felt bigger and my heart pumped stronger than ever before. All these feelings of pride rushing through me and my coach said, ‘You must have been playing basketball all your life, right Rose?’
“I told him no, I’ve never even looked at a leather ball, soccer is my sport. He just said, ‘This must be meant to be. You’re a true natural Rose and this game will take you places if you love it enough. It will.’ “
Truer words have never been said because Rose used that experience to propel herself, and to fall in love with the hoop game. She always had dreamed of being a leader in her life, a good student in class, making a difference in society some day to make the world a better place.
Now she was walking the walk to make her team better with her 2 feet now off the fields and on the court.
Now in 2019, half-way across the planet, Rose is attending the prestigious Sierra Canyon Preparatory school, repping her game. She’s like rapper Drake says in his song In my Feelings, “Los Angeles, do you love me?”
Yes, Rose, Sierra Canyon and LA loves you girl, as I’m sure Nigeria misses you fosho.
What’s not to love about this sweet girl? She has a sense of humor, an athletic frame and sculpted muscles aplenty, yet she still acts girly. It’s fitting she’s named Rose because she’s as delicate as a flower in convo, just a bubbly person.
I feel blessed to talk to Rose every so often since she moved to LA in her sophomore year. She began her schooling at Ribet Academy.
There’s something about her that’s very humble. Maybe it’s her shy glance that put me at ease then, she’s still a lil shy meeting new people but get to know Rose and she’ll open up and tell you how dope her prom went.
She’s the kind of person you want as a friend for life.
I invited Rose to catch a UCLA Bruin basketball game with me a few months ago and you could see her eyes just light up at watching the Bruins play vs Oregon. The thought of how great would it be to play at that next level? Fire in her eyes.
The only the other female inside Pauley Pavilion that was stronger than Rose that day? The coldest Duck to ever play for Oregon, Sabrina Ionescu.
I asked Rose, “Isn’t it loud in here to you?” as we watched the action. Rose said, “Not for me, I always hear Afro Beats in my head. The thumping and pounding rhythm makes me feel at home. This loud crowd feels like home to me, I want to play in front of many fans that will support me this way I hope.”
You can take the girl out of Africa, but not the drum beats out of this girl’s spirit I guess.
What’s the one thing this reader needs to know about Rose the power forward? When she plays between those 4 lines, it’s like how a Navy Seal goes to war.
Let me share a story of coincidence that illustrates the point. I was watching Rose play a few days ago at The Kobe Mamba Center in Thousand Oaks. It’s located a few minutes from my house and my guy was giving me a tour of the facilities.
We happened across an all black room on the 2nd floor, which has to be the dopest facility I’ve ever seen.
There was riot gear and helmets adorned around the shelves, lights off, pitch freaking black, an absence of light? Spooky, and I’m like WTF is this doing in this complex? Why is there military stuff up in the Mamba Academy?
It’s a prep room for law enforcement, the stuff that Navy Seal teams endure and train for. Imagine an all black room, rubber squishy floor, helmets, an environment that blasts you to elite physicality, operations of stealth movement.
When the lights go off it’s where local sheriffs go to experience cutting edge training to combat terrorism, to expect the unexpected I was told.
Point is, Rose is that training room in a game. Lights on, game clock starts, Rose is all up in your grill so be ready to possibly lose a limb, have it fed to you.
You joking around E-Woods? Nope, heck nooooo, just ask any of the teams that lost to top 20 nationally ranked Sierra Canyon that went 33-1. Rose performed so well against many teams, it was her frenetic pace, setting the tempo on D, her hustle.
She set a mentality all year, the drums beating in her heads spilled out onto the floor, and the drums beat other girls down big time bro.
Try to out rebound Rose? Get through her screens? Yeah right? She sets picks for the guards that are quite crushing, and her teammates are dope on top of dope level scorers.
How dope, E-Woods? Two teammates are Duke commit Vanessa De Jesus and Texas commit Ashley Chevalier. Fire and Ice fosho. 100.
I had a girl from a rival prep team ask me if I thought she could intimidate and push Rose around. Haaah! LMAO was my response. You’ll need a more fantastic core, gain 20 lbs more of pure muscle, learn to enjoy being a glutton for punishment to engage her.
Rose is likely to push you around like a football sled, because moving her is like trying to push around Andre Drummond from the NBA Pistons, and the girl in question was already 6-2 and 160 lbs.
#Ask me a question, I tell you no lies.
There’s something I greatly admire about the young Nigerian AAU players living near me in LA. It’s their family core values and fantastic work ethic that’s second to none.
Like 6-3 Kiki Iriafen, the top 5 ranked soph from Harvard Westlake. Her dad Harrison is that styling and caring dude, he reminds his kids to live the American Dream by working for it.
I’m also so impressed with 6-3 eighth grader Amamoke Ukah. I invited her beautiful family to hang out with Rose at the UCLA game, her whole family was loving to Rose. I saw their Nigerian roots come alive, as Daniel Ukah and Amamoke’s family embraced Rose that day. It was a moment to be sure.
What should be known about Rose besides her game? She loves politics and loves the idea of solving problems. So being a political science major in college might be in her future.
She has high hopes for the hoop program she will commit to. I’ll let her explain, “I want to play for a college team that will use my talents. I want to see the floor, impact the outcomes. My biggest goals to improve in my skill sets are the catch and shoot situations and sharpening up my mid range offense game.
“I’m proud that I can erupt for a 20 rebound performance at any time but just being a physical talent isn’t my goal. Being an all-around threat, a complete player is my goal.”
Get to know Rose well enough and you’ll understand how and why she wants to be utilized on her future college team.
Rose had only a single mom raising her growing up and she learned how to be very responsible by helping run the family’s makeshift restaurant. Rose learned to be the ultimate helper, fetching foods from the market, boiling water, keeping everything tidy. She did this along with her older sister Olamide, older brother Adedayo, and younger brother Charles.
Rose misses her mom but appreciates her host family so much. She still stays in contact with her loving mom Temitope Odebunmi, whom she calls “mum”, and face-times with her to often pray for good health, to pray to God in appreciation of blessings she feels that life has given her.
#Rose is special
All this is why you can tell Rose wants to play for a college team that needs her. All she’s ever known is being needed.
Where’s Rose’s college recruitment stand? She’s had D1 programs seriously recruit her, from SoCal programs to others in Colorado. I’ve talked to all kinds of D1 programs from low to high major status about Rose. They all love many aspects of her game, but they always point out that she played behind incredible players at Sierra Canyon.
D1’s seem to be in a wait and see mode about Rose, offer and scholarship wise. She’s in a great place next year to be “the woman” in the front court at Sierra Canyon, to dominate alongside the fantastic backcourt.
That’s what makes watching Rose so exciting, seeing her progress, taking steps to show that she can start to impact the game at the college level. That’s a lot of pressure but you’ll never see Rose act nervous about it. How many of us could handle that level of pressure to improve and help win back to back state chips?
Rose told me her philosophy of life, which is pretty dope. “The only person who can stop me is me, when I’m on. I feel that the ball is mine, I can help the team as a difference maker. I have faith in God and pray all the time for everything that’s important in life, my family to be healthy, for me to keep strong grades, for me to put myself in a situation to succeed.”
Rose is a serious student progressing in her class marks. I’ll let her share next season’s goals, “I love my coach Alicia Komaki. She’s tough because she cares about us truly, getting on us to make our grades, to improve ourselves, to be the best that we can be as a person and a player.”
Rose’s fav singer is Kendrick Lamar. She says he looks fine. I dunno, me, E-Woods, I’ve never looked at Kendrick that way but I can imagine a girl teenager thinking he’s a great looking dude I guess.
I do love K-Dot’s music no doubt, especially his song Institutionalized. It reminds me of Rose’s journey. Feel his lyrics:
“Me scholarship? No, streets put me through colleges
Be all you can be, true, but the problem is
A dream's only a dream if work don't follow it.”
Rose’s dream will undoubtedly morph into reality.
She is also a very talented painter and I asked her to text me a photo of the sunset she painted. It was so beautiful but she’s too humble to ever give herself credit.
The painting was like so much out of Nigeria, like my fav singer when I was Rose’s age -Nigerian born Sade Adu whose song Smooth Operator is smoooooth.
That’s what Rose is, smoothly operating on a dream that will some day stop being a dream. Because it’s like Kendrick Lamar says (paraphrasing), “You have to work for it or it stays a dream.”
