AHSAA AREA PLAYOFFS: LAMP's Akwuba makes most of senior year in class, basketball

Before becoming a student of the game of basketball, LAMP’s Benedict Akwuba was a award-winning student at the magnet school. He plans to major in biological engineering at Auburn next Fall. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

Ben Akwuba-Charles is truly a student of the game.

The LAMP senior had never played organized sports of any kind before showing up for his freshman season at the Montgomery magnet school, where he was talked into playing.

“I teach P.E. to all ninth graders,” LAMP coach Robb McGaughey said, “and ever since I’ve been a coach, I would see guys and if you’re around my height or better, I’m going to approach you. ‘Have you ever played basketball?’ He said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘We’ll teach you.

“(Assistant) Coach (Chris) Shomber was telling me of how one of the very first days of practice he was working on a drill and he said, ‘Ben, put it on the glass.’ Ben looked at him and asked, ‘What’s the glass?’ That’s where we started from.”

The 6-foot-3 senior forward has progressed over the last four years. Now averaging 12 points and eight rebounds per game, Akwuba-Charles will lead the Golden Tigers into the 4A Area 5 Tournament with a home game on Saturday afternoon against Tallassee.

“He just consistently worked at it,” McGaughey said. “Coach (Jim) Sanderson came and coached with us last year and he helped a lot in the development of Ben on some things. (Akwuba-Charles) just really bought into it. I’m just amazed at how far he’s come.”

He actually thought of playing a little earlier, making the basketball team at Johnnie Carr Middle School after his sixth grade year, but he missed the summer workouts because of a miscommunication and therefore didn’t make the team.

“I knew I had athletic potential after playing a little bit with the team practices,” he said. “I had the mindset to be the best I could be. I was born in Montgomery but my parents are from Nigeria so they didn’t have the mindset about sports. They put me into Boy Scouts and band.”

Like his Boy Scout experience (he earned Eagle Scout status last year), he has shown considerable improvement in basketball over the past four years, but still remembers those early days at LAMP.

“I can remember when I showed up for tryouts, I got the rebound and took it coast to coast with my left hand,” he said. “I was so surprised I was dribbling (with the opposite hand). I ended up missing the fastbreak layup on a guy that was probably half my height.

“Coach McGaughey told me to work on my post moves because he knew my potential and he just knew what the LAMP program needed. LAMP has always had good guards that can handle the ball and shoot some, but we’ve never had a really good post that can change the game from the inside. Even looking at our team now, I think what if I developed my guard skills from my freshman year, how good of a guard would I be, but from a team aspect we need the post to get rebounds and spread the defense, so it was better not only for me but for the team that I focused on my post skills.”

McGaughey is thankful that he did, but the coach also chuckles as he is confronted time and again on the priority Akwuba-Charles places on being a student-athlete, with the student coming first.

“When the guys in athletics period finish and say let’s get a ball out, I’ll look over and Ben’s just in the bleachers, studying away,” McGaughey said. “He’ll get out there eventually, but he’s very disciplined.”

Then there was the time LAMP was scheduled to play an evening game at Montevallo. McGaughey discovered Akwuba-Charles had signed up to take a specialized math test and would miss the game.  

“He was like, ‘I’m not going to make the trip’ and it wasn’t even a test that was required,” McGaughey said. “I knew how much we needed him. (Assistant) coach (Floyd) Mathews and I just hung back -- everybody else went up on the bus -- and Ben rode with us.”  

“It’s called the American Math Competitions,” Akwuba-Charles said. “There’s multiple levels to it. First, there’s the regional level, then you move on to the state and the national level and you compete with other countries. I never got that far. Our calculus teacher recommended me to do it because he saw I was good at that type of stuff. So if he sees something in me, I want to just go on and try it.”

There’s another time when the coaching staff was afraid he was going to miss a game because Akwuba-Charles was planning to take the ACT again after making a score of 31 the first time.

“I was at a 31 but I wanted to try and apply to UPenn, so I wanted to try to get the 50th percentile, which is around a 33 or 34,” he said. “So I ended up taking it one more time to get a 33. I would’ve taken it again but I just knew it wasn’t going to make as big a difference on my application as extracurricular activities and grades would.”

Akwuba-Charles made the 33, but he didn’t get the invitation from Penn, so he’s going to Auburn (on a full academic scholarship) to major in biological engineering.

“I can do stuff like modifying a plant species to grow on a different planet, helping people with cancer or trying to heal the environment, so there’s a lot of good stuff you can do with it,” Akwuba-Charles said. “From a bioengineering standpoint, I want to help heal the environment because I know climate change is a big topic. Also, I want to get people to acknowledge it as the truth because some people don’t like believing it. I want to show them that it’s a real thing, but it’s also possible to fix it. And not just climate change like the heat, but pollution in general. I want to create big discoveries that can aid in healing the Earth so we can progress as a society.”

First, he wants to see how far he can help this LAMP team advance in the postseason. The Golden Tigers play Tallassee on Saturday and must win to advance to the area tournament semifinals against Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee on Monday.

“Over the past two years, Coach McGaughey has been telling us that we’re capable, even though we’re in this really tough area,” Akwuba-Charles said. “From my freshman year, the area was LAMP, ACA and BTW (Magnet), a very weak area. If we were in it this year, we would definitely win it. Then they moved us to (BTW) Tuskegee, Catholic and Trinity. Coach tells us we have the potential, but I think what gets us is our lack of experience, our lack of confidence. 

“We have to get more confidence, not just as a team but in our program in our ability.”

If the Golden Tigers win on Saturday, they’ll have to beat one of the best teams in the state in their gym. Akwuba-Charles is realistic about LAMP’s chances. 

“Keep the game slow,” he said. “When we played (in the regular season) at Tuskegee, we actually had a pretty good game. We held them to 15 points in the first half and we were down four, a low-scoring game, because we got down on defense and stayed disciplined. And we stayed disicplined on offense, handling their press. We kind of have to keep it slow and stay confident because Tuskegee, after all the 6A and 7A teams they’ve played, they won’t be looking at us as a big threat, at least from the players’ standpoint.”

CLASS 4A Area 5 Tournament

First Round

Tallassee at LAMP, Saturday, 1 p.m.

Semifinals, Finals at Booker T. Washington

Trinity vs. Catholic, Monday, 5:30 p.m.

BTW vs. Tallassee-LAMP winner, Monday, 7 p.m.

Area finals, Wednesday, 6 p.m.