anxious to begin his career at San Diego State.
Three years ago David Abramowitz was asked by Branch West Basketball Academy head coach Bob Gotlieb if he knew of anyone who might be able to play on his traveling team.
After a couple of minutes Abramowitz, a star guard at USD High School, replied, “I heard about this kid going to Grossmont High School. He might be able to play for us.”
Abramowitz, who recently signed a letter of intent to play at San Diego State next season, knew little, if nothing at all, about Vincent Okotie.
“I heard about Vince through some of my buddies on other high school basketball teams,” Abramowitz said. “They had told me he was a little raw but that he was definitely a good player.
“So I got his number from a friend and called him up and asked him if he wanted to play.”
Okotie, having played basketball competitively for only one year at the time, felt the opportunity to play on a traveling team during the summer was just too good to pass up.
“When David (Abramowitz) asked me if I wanted to play, it took me maybe three seconds to answer,” Okotie said.
And that’s where it began, the day a skinny 6-foot-4 freshman began his remarkable, yet short, journey from a basketball novice into one of the best high school forwards in California.
Okotie’s game has blossomed in the three years he’s played for Branch West. He’s made the transition from a post-up player who relied solely on his size into a 6-foot-7 small forward capable of taking his defender inside or out.
His game has matured so much so that when it came time to select a college at which to continue his basketball career, Okotie had to literally fend off prospective suitors.
To say he was hotly recruited is an understatement.
The Grossmont High senior was contacted by just about every Division I coach in the country, including one Bobby Knight.
“I answered the phone one night, and the man on the other end said, ‘Hello, this is Bobby Knight. Is Vincent there?'” Vincent’s mother Luckie Judson said. “Vincent talked to him for maybe 15 minutes, then hung up the phone and looked at me and said, ‘I don’t want to go to Indiana.’
“He told me he wanted to stay here and go to school somewhere on the West Coast.”
That meant narrowing down his choices to USC, SDSU, Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State. And out of those six, Okotie and his mother came to the decision that SDSU was the place for him.
According to his mother, his decision was made after considering several things. He wanted to go to school in California, go somewhere he felt he had the chance to come in and start as a freshman, go somewhere he could learn and get better each year, and most importantly, go somewhere close to home.
The unanimous choice was Montezuma Mesa.
“When we looked at the situation at SDSU, it just seemed like the perfect place for Vincent to go,” his mother said. “Once he made that decision, Vincent really became intent on building something at home and developing the Aztecs into a good program.”
Now that he’s made his decision to attend SDSU next year, Okotie has become the Aztecs’ biggest cheerleader this season. Since signing his letter of intent, Okotie has adorned himself with as much Aztecs paraphernalia as possible.
“He can’t wait for next season. He wears SDSU T-shirts and hats all the time around the house and to school,” his mother said. “All he does is talk about what’s going to happen next year when he’s playing. He can’t wait.”
While Okotie will have to wait until next year before he can suit up and take the court as an Aztec, he talks as if he’s part of this year’s squad.
After watching the Aztecs’ 80-68 victory over Oregon, Okotie had nothing but words of praise for his future teammates.
“They look good, they play hard and with a few new players they’ll be real good,” Okotie said of this year’s version of the SDSU men’s basketball team. “The style of basketball they play is real exciting, and I can’t wait until I get there to play for coach (Fred) Trenkle next year.”
Next year can’t get here soon enough for Aztecs basketball fans. It’s when they’ll get the opportunity to be introduced to a kid from Grossmont High School.
This kid’s name is Vincent Okotie, and he may very well be the best small forward ever recruited by SDSU.
“Vincent is definitely one of the most talented players ever to sign at SDSU at the forward position,” Aztecs men’s basketball head coach Trenkle said. “And he may be the best.”
Whether or not he is has yet to be determined.
Editor’s Note: Vincent Okotie is part one of a five-part series that will run throughout the semester on SDSU’s 1998 recruiting class.
