Cameroonian NFL hopeful takes a trip back home

Stephane Nembot jokes that in Boulder he is referred to as "the African," and back home in Cameroon he is now called "the American." Earlier this summer, Colorado's starting right offensive tackle traveled back to West-Central Africa to see his family for the first time in more than six years.

Traveling home took nearly 30 hours. He flew from Denver to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Istanbul to Cameroon. When Nembot finally arrived and stepped off the plane, only one family member recognized him.

"My own little sister was looking for me and she passed right by me. She didn't recognize me," said Nembot, who had grown four inches and gained nearly 100 pounds since last seeing his family. "My mom was the only person that recognized me. It had been so long. It was like I was a stranger in my house. That is what happened the first day, but after about a week we were all familiar again."

Nembot was in Cameroon for two-and-a-half weeks, which gave him time to set his younger sister up with a laptop so they can video chat in the future and allowed him to get his father some help.



"My dad broke his leg and they didn't tell me because they wanted to spare me away from trying to move back home," he said. "There was no money to go to the hospital to get the proper treatment but I was able to contact other family members and now he is doing Kinesiology therapy and is getting better. He is learning to walk again."

While not much of Nembot's trip home mirrored what most Americans experience when they take a break from college to visit home, the opportunity to enjoy mom's cooking was one parallel.

"It is always good to be home for the food. Nobody makes food like your mom," Nembot said with a smile. "You eat and shower and wait for more of mom's food."

His favorite dish is Ndole, which consists of a stew of nuts, bitter leaves and beef. He also indulged in a lot of chicken and seafood while he was home.

"I actually got to eat the chicken because the way chicken is made in America, I don't think it tastes good," Nembot said. "Here we give a lot of [steroids] to the chicken to make it grow fast. Over there, it grows naturally in the environment and it tastes way different. Our town is on the coast of the Atlantic ocean so I got to eat tons of fish and shrimp. It was pretty good."

Before moving to the United States six-and-a-half years ago, Nembot grew up in a city but his family has a rich tribal tradition in Cameroon. His mother was a princess in her tribe before moving to the city after she embraced Christianity.

"They practice things that have been practiced for centuries by our ancestors. They believe in the supremacy but I don't think they call it God," Nembot explained. "It's not like [you are disowned if you leave], but you believe in something different now so that is why my mom moved to the city.

"My mom is the daughter of a king so I am a prince. I don't like to announce it but I am a decedent of the Nembot warrior, who was the first warrior of our kingdom. When you are in Cameroon and someone hears Nembot, people tend to turn around. It helped shape me to who I am today. You know you have to work hard. People before me worked hard so I can't slack. I have to stay on that same line."

Nembot spent three months as a teenager living in the tribe's village with his grandparents. He was educated about his family's ancestry and also learned how to hunt.

After all his time in the United States, Nembot still has the same goal. He never lost touch with his roots. His goal of returning home to Cameroon to help those in need remains his top priority.

"My dream has always been to create a charity, come back and build an orphanage. When I went back home to Cameroon, I went and visited the place [I want to build it] to make sure nothing is there still," Nembot said. "But I need resources for my dream. Where can I find resources? Here in America. So after I graduate, I am going to open the charity where people can give money. I will raise as much money as I can."

The pursuit of a degree in International Affairs, which Nembot is on pace to earn this December, has helped prepare him for his future endeavors.

"I discovered in a class here about how corrupt the government in Africa is with organizations, there is a lot of stealing. The money doesn't reach where you want it to reach," he said. "I want to take the money from Point A straight to the kids that need it. And a lot of charities rent expensive office space. I won't do that. My only concern is helping the people.

"I already know of a town where there are a lot of poor children that don't go to school. So if I could build an orphanage with a school right next to it, it will help a lot. That is my plan but of course you have to have the money to do such a thing. That is my goal since I ever came to America, and I hope to fulfill it."

Nembot's long term goals go beyond helping to build an orphanage and a school in Cameroon. He also wants to help prevent the malaria epidemic in Africa and build water wells. Villagers he is familiar with in Africa have to walk a mile each way in order just to obtain drinkable water.

His social consciousness is admirable and his future is well thought out. As an offensive lineman, Nembot is still very much a work in progress.

He did not starting playing football until his junior year of high school. Nembot's athletic potential was initially discovered by an American high school basketball coach, who convinced him to move more than 8,200 miles away from home to Los Angeles in 2008.

"He was looking for tall guys and I happened to be at the right spot at the right time," recalls Nembot, who now stands 6-foot-7, 295-pounds. "The coach told me I have potential to be a great basketball player so he helped me in the process of coming to the U.S. to start playing in California. It wasn't something I had planned."

Nembot went out for the football team at Montclair Prep as a high school junior, but looking back, he admits he did it for fun and thought he would give up the sport after a short trial period. When opposing teams started double teaming Nembot that fall, however, he started to realize he should take football seriously. Initially a defensive end, Nembot earned second-team all-league honors and recorded 36 tackles in his first year playing organized football.

Nembot also lettered in basketball, soccer and volleyball during his junior year of high school. He was named his league's top defender in hoops, but decided to stop playing basketball before he began his senior year.

"I decided to focus just on football," Nembot said.

Nembot was named the Alpha League Lineman of the Year as a prep senior after recording 61 tackles and 11 sacks. Rivals.com tabbed him, "the most intriguing prospect in the west." During his recruitment, he received scholarship offers from USC, UCLA, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, Oregon State, Arizona State and of course, Colorado.

Knowing that he needed further development as a football player, Nembot asked former Buffs head coach Jon Embree to redshirt him. He also asked to move from defensive end to offensive tackle, a request that was granted.

After redshirting, Nembot saw action in all 24 games the past two seasons, including 19 starts. He has been a dominant run blocker, and led the Buffs in knockdown blocks last fall, but pass protection has been an adventure for Nembot. He allowed seven-and-a-half sacks and 20 pressures in 2013.

"Pass blocking is unnatural for me because I played defensive end and I was used to going forward," he explained. "Now I have to step back, back peddle to wait for somebody to come to me and I don't really like having to wait for someone to come. I like to go get people. (laughing)

"My redshirt freshman year I would only run block and if we ever had a chance where we were on third down, Ryan Dannewitz would come in and pass protect. I never learned to pass protect until this past season. I really feel like [current Colorado offensive line] coach [Gary] Bernardi did a great job with me last season. I complained a lot last season because of the amount of reps he made me take but I also understood why he was doing it."

Nembot won the Joe Romig Award this spring, awarded by the coaches for being the Buffs' most improved offensive lineman. He is expected to man the starting right tackle spot again this season.

Back home in Cameroon, nobody understands exactly what he is doing from an athletic standpoint. National soccer games are the only spectator sport, according to Nembot. He is trying to educate his family, though.

"I took home some videos of my games from last season. I gave it to them the day before I left," Nembot said. "The warrior side of my dad will be like, 'well, that is cool, he is learning to be a man.' But my mom will be like, 'that is too violent, I don't want to see that.' But I want them to know what I am doing so we can talk about it on the phone when I am not there."

After traveling back to Boulder for summer conditioning work, Nembot had trouble adjusting back to Mountain Time. He was often asleep during the day and awake at night.

"I didn't want to leave home but I am here for something bigger than me. I had to come back and keep doing what I'm doing," he said. "At the same time, I am pretty happy I am here to play football for the season, get my degree and then see where things go."