The followers keep coming, seemingly a new one each week of Thabo Sefolosha's young basketball career.
They arrive at the Berto Center and United Center to chronicle his every move, to sate the curiosity back home, to tell the story of the first Swiss-born player in the NBA.
Their reports and stories run on Swiss TV stations and in Swiss newspapers typically devoted to the athletic exploits on soccer fields, hockey rinks and mountains.
"He's getting way too much attention for a rookie," Viktor Khryapa said, smiling.
Teasing is the ultimate form of respect inside any sports locker room. And Sefolosha is being accepted not only for his raw basketball ability but also for the path he took to reach his lifelong goal.
Teachers dissuaded him. Friends laughed at him. Even some teammates in the French and Italian leagues he sought out for better competition rolled their eyes when he repeated the three letters of his ultimate dream--NBA.
"I remember people laughing and saying, `All right, whatever,'" Sefolosha said recently at the Bulls' practice facility. "I had so many people say I would never leave Switzerland by playing basketball."
That's what made the Bulls' draft-day trade to acquire him from the 76ers in June so special. That's why an e-mail Sefolosha received from his mother's boyfriend the other day resonated so powerfully.
"It said, `It's good to be the best. But being the first is good as well,'" Sefolosha said. "Being the best, somebody else always can come along and be better than you. But being the first, nobody can take that away."
Life lessons from family and friends always have touched Sefolosha, the youngest son of a South African musician and a Swiss artist. Patrick and Christine Sefolosha married during the ugly time of apartheid and their interracial marriage created its fair share of angst.
Catcalls were common. Physical altercations also occurred.
"It was pretty tough for both of them, especially for my mom," Sefolosha said. "As a white woman, she went through a lot just because she loved that man. I really respect them both for what they went through."
Seeking social tolerance, the couple moved to Switzerland before Sefolosha's older brother, Kgomotso, was born. Like most Swiss-born children with an excess of energy, Sefolosha and his brother played soccer, rode bicycles and rarely stopped.
But when a friend on the playground slipped Sefolosha some taped NBA games, something happened. There, in the fast-break fluidity of Chris Webber's Golden State Warriors, the smothering defense of Scottie Pippen and the artistry of Michael Jordan, Sefolosha found his passion at age 10.
Befitting the offspring of two artistically inclined parents who valued expression, Sefolosha was drawn most to the expression of movement.
"I liked the Bulls, but I've never been a huge fan of any one team," Sefolosha said. "I just really liked the movements of the game. I didn't know anything about it. But I was intrigued by the players running and jumping and dunking."
Sefolosha's passion soon became an obsession, which is why he asked for his parents' blessing to move to France at 17 to try to play professionally. Now divorced, his parents insisted he get the equivalent of a high school diploma while playing so he had ballast in case his dreams died.
Then both encouraged the dreams to live.
"They're passionate people and they always showed me that when you believe in something and you really want to do it, you have to chase it no matter what other people say," Sefolosha said. "That's what I did by going to France and later Italy to play."
Italy is where general manager John Paxson first saw Sefolosha play after the wiry guard had caught the eye of Ivica Dukan, the Bulls' supervisor of European scouting. By now, Sefolosha had blossomed into a confident young man, someone whose family, worldly travel and life experiences had taught him lessons he has never forgotten.
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By K.C. Johnson
Extract from The Chicago Tribune - © 2006. All rights reserved.
