Serge Angounou (@sergeangounou) is an ELITE Sun Devil. Allow me to explain. Angounou was the 2002 New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year. He was long, athletic and skilled with the ball. I got to see him in person in 2001 at one of the first grassroots basketball events I ever covered and he was damn impressive. Ike Diogu, who went on to become ASU’s best big man this century, was in the same recruiting class. Everyone in the burgeoning recruiting industry raved about the highly ranked Diogu, who thereafter earned P12 Freshman of the Year honors and two seasons later was named P12 POY. But the team’s coaches couldn’t stop gushing about Angounou. He was going to be a star, they privately said. Even Doug Tammaro thought he might be a pretty good player (you can interpret this in multiple ways. I’ll let you decide). Late in an exhibition game as a true freshman, Angounou took a nasty spill, injuring his knee in a manner that was much less easy to surgically repair 20+ years ago than today. He had an early version of microfracture to try to stimulate cartilage growth. He redshirted and then only played in 15 games the following year. I never saw him without a smile on his face the entire time. The young man, a native of Yaoundé, Cameroon, would tell you how blessed he felt, and he could do it in five different languages. Did he leave ASU to pursue more playing time elsewhere? Of course not. He wasn’t going out like that. He spent three more seasons as a glue guy, even staying through a coaching transition, starting 76 more games and earning a degree in Spanish before his final season. That’s right, a five-year Sun Devil player. In the years since, I’ve seen Angounou around the ASU basketball program about as much as any other former players except Kyle Dodd (who played with Angounou and Diogu and is a halfway decent fledgling commercial actor) and the legendary Joe Caldwell. Offering support and encouragement while wearing a smile, always. Serge Angounou is an ELITE Sun Devil who co-owns a Nashville Hot Chicken restaurant franchise at 1628 E. Southern Ave. in Tempe, which is giving 15% off to teachers this week — which is sweetly ironic to me because we can all learn lessons on humility, persistency and perspective from him. Please note: This is an unpaid and unsolicited endorsement.
