Well before Tacko Fall started dominating opposing teams on the court, the 7-foot-5 center experienced his fair share of ups and downs when first arriving in the United States in 2012.
Fall bounced around several cities in the U.S. after leaving his home country of Senegal. He first landed in Houston, then went to Cincinnati where his father lived and eventually ended up in Georgia but he had difficulties securing an I-20 visa form.
Fall was discovered by a man named Ben Simmons (not that Ben Simmons) who tried to help him secure a visa. However, as Fall recalled on The Grant and Tacko Show, a podcast on The Athletic, a costly mistake knowingly made by Simmons resulted in the U.S. revoking his visa, which meant Fall was in the country illegally.
With his visa revoked, Fall faced an incredibly difficult time transferring to another school. He eventually landed in Florida at Liberty Christian Prep just north of Orlando and met his host family when things finally began to become stable again.
After facing an incredibly long road to this point of his career, Fall wants to give back as often as he can so no younger player has to experience what he went through.
“My journey, I don’t want other kids to go through what I had to go through,” Fall said on The Grant and Tacko Show. “Now that the NBA is involved with going to Africa, building courts, helping them financially, giving them basketballs, jerseys and things like that now, kids can start from a very young age and they have everything they need in the first place. They are training like the coaches and they are getting taught the right things.”
Last summer, Fall visited Senegal to take part in the Basketball Without Borders program. Since 2003, the NBA, in partnership with FIBA, has hosted the instructional basketball camp for young people that also promotes leadership, education, sportsmanship and healthy living.
More than 1,100 campers from more than 30 African countries have participated in Basketball Without Borders over the past 17 years. A total of 10 Africa alumni have been drafted into the NBA, including Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam.
The presence of the NBA and FIBA in countries around the world has played a monumental role in growing the league internationally. Earlier this year, the NBA and FIBA helped launch the Basketball Africa League, which features 12 teams.
“Now that they have the [Basketball Africa League], kids don’t have to leave home and they don’t have to be away from their families to be seen,” Fall said. “They have the African League and with the NBA involved, scouts will be there and they will be seen. They may have the chance to go to school and they may even have the chance to play in the NBA. Everything is very-well structured and you won’t have people making mistakes where kids bounce from one place to another.”
A total of five players from The NBA Academy Africa, an elite basketball training center in Saly, Senegal, have earned scholarships to Division I schools since its inception in 2017.
In addition to visiting Africa last summer, Fall also joined NBA players Pascal Siakam, Davis Bertāns and Lauri Markkanen in coaching the top high school age campers from around the world during the sixth annual Basketball Without Borders Global Camp in Chicago during NBA All-Star 2020.
Siakam, Bertāns, Fall and Markkanen were joined by former WNBA players Ashley Battle, Michele Van Gorp and Ebony Hoffman and led the campers through a variety of activities on and off the court.
Among the record 30 former BWB campers on opening-night NBA rosters for the 2019-20 season, 14 participated in the BWB Global Camp, including Deandre Ayton, R.J. Barrett, Rui Hachimura, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray.
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