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closeThis summer, the 1 Dream Foundation has welcomed 10 international student athletes from five countries around the world into its summer placement program.
The size of the roster represents growth to the San Luis Obispo-based non-profit organization aimed at giving underprivileged student athletes from outside the 50 states educational opportunities at U.S. high schools.
It started with one, Francisco Luano, in 2007. Last summer, the foundation brought in nine kids.
The 10 this year are from Senegal, Angola, Ghana, Hungary, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and the number is an increase, but growth potential — as it is with many ventures in the slumping economy — is uncertain.
The program, which flies kids in from their home countries, places them with volunteer host parents in San Luis Obispo County while they take English classes over the summer then flies them out to high schools around the country — turned down 40 applicants.
“We know that we could get the kids,” said founder Tom Mott, recently hired as the athletic director and boys basketball coach at St. Joseph High in Santa Maria. “We could easily have 20 kids here next summer, but whether we can raise the money to support those 20 kids is the question, especially with this economy.”
The quest to raise funds for the 1 Dream Foundation continues with a Soup Night hosted by Joe Mommas Coffee at Olde Port Beach in Avila Beach on Wednesday night at 7.
Cost is $15 for the event, which also serves as a meet and greet with the players.
One of those players is Daniel Gomis, a 6-foot-9 forward from Senegal, who coaches say has plenty of potential.
Since Mott has been hired at St. Joseph, he’s handed many of the day-to-day duties of running the foundation for the summer to Mark Berokoff, a former Morro Bay High boys basketball coach who has 15 years of experience with AAU basketball.
Berokoff said Gomis, a junior, is already getting interest from Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East Conference schools.
“He’s a program changer,” Berokoff said. “I already have one college coach that thinks he’s an NBA talent already.”
If he eventually makes it, Gomis could be the first 1 Dream player to get to the NBA, but, Mott said, helping the kids make it through college is a more practical goal for his foundation.
“We need kids that are going to work hard and be successful in the classroom,” Mott said, “because the reality of the situation is most of the kids aren’t going to be making a living on basketball.”
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