HARTFORD, Conn. — When Adama Sanogo started working with Championship Labs, a class within UConn’s Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that helps student-athletes with navigating name, image and likeness opportunities, he had to start building his own personal brand.
“What do you care about? What do you love?” David Noble, Director of the Werth Institute, posed.
For Sanogo, the answers came easy.
It wasn’t about making money for himself — he thought back to his roots, how when he was a kid in Bamako, Mali, most of his friends never had an opportunity to go to school. How when he grew up, playing college basketball at its highest level and earning an American education, entering his name in the NBA draft — none of it could’ve ever been dreamed about.
“When I go pro, I want to build a school in Africa so I can help them,” the eventual national champion and Final Four Most Outstanding Player told The Hartford Courant. “Their families could not afford it. Coming to the United States, seeing that, thinking about that — if they don’t have an education they don’t have a chance. So I was like, ‘All right, I want to be able to get them an education.'”
Andre Jackson helped come up with a name, and Sanogo had his brand. Soon after, he created his website: AdamaNation.com.
While on his standard F-1 visa for international students, Sanogo can only earn money working outside of the U.S. He held a basketball camp for kids in Mali last summer and has found ways to make other deals, like one with Sunoco after he led the Huskies to a national title.
According to his website it takes $150 per month to cover one child’s education. The website says Sanogo is currently supporting two Malian children.
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It’s rare for the UConn basketball program to invite faculty members in to speak with the team.
So, when Noble was asked shortly after the 2021-22 season concluded, he jumped at the opportunity without really knowing why. The six players, Sanogo and Samson Johnson especially, didn’t know why they were there, either.
They sat toward the back and stared at the business professor who they were told would speak about NIL, about how UConn was going to build a support system for them.
“Adama always tells it like, ‘I didn’t even know why I was there. I can’t do NIL anyway, why am I here?' ” Noble said. “They were just staring at me.”
Then Noble started to get to know Sanogo, the largest human he’d ever met (before Donovan Clingan came along), his 6-foot-9 body sprawling out of his chair.
“When we first found out how nice he was as a human being, me and my staff were just blown away. We couldn’t stop talking about it for like six weeks. We were like, ‘How is this the basketball player?’ Like, he cares about other people. … He just destroyed so many stereotypes you have of basketball players,” Noble said.
Sanogo enrolled in Championship Labs, which was created shortly after that initially awkward meeting, and, even though he couldn’t earn any money or accept any donations, the junior began building his brand and website as part of the class workload.
“There’s no rule that says you can’t develop your brand, there’s no rule that says you can’t be on social media,” Noble said. “That website is authentic to Adama. … The authenticity of his desire to help kids in Mali — he’s actually going to do it. There’s nothing that can stop him from helping kids in Mali because it’s that important to him. This is who he is, and that’s really exciting to work with.
“Adama wasn’t able to do NIL deals, but he was able to work on a website and get his website ready to go. And when the visa rules allow him to start monetizing — which would be if he’s drafted or signs with the G League — then he would be able to start.”
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There was an alumni dinner before the UConn women’s basketball team hosted then-No. 1 South Carolina back in February. One of the younger students helping Sanogo with his social media was at the dinner, sitting with legendary UConn alumna Tina Charles, and told Sanogo’s story, how she’d been working with him and what his goals were.
Charles mentioned that she also helped build a school in Mali, just southeast of Sanogo’s home city of Bamako, just a few years after she helped lead the UConn women to a second consecutive national title in 2010. Charles became interested in humanitarian work in Africa as a sophomore at UConn, after she researched an foundation called OmniPeace. She went on to work as an ambassador for them and an organization called BuildOn to help build schools.
“So that was a connection that we made,” Noble said, “we found that out and we’re gonna talk to her and probably engage with her around this.”
On April 13, Sanogo declared for the NBA draft, announcing it with the fourth Instagram post on his new account now at over 14,000 followers.
“The Werth Institute is for life. We don’t leave our students just because they graduated, their entrepreneurial journey usually continues. So we’ve talked about this with Adama, that we’ll be there to help build those schools,” Noble said. “We’ve had some inbound flow on some companies that have interest in Africa and people that have interest in helping Africa and refugees. … He’ll definitely be working on this — right now, his obstacle to getting in the NBA is high so that’s really where he’s at — but with his extra time, with his extra thoughts, that’s where he’ll be.”
Should Sanogo be drafted by an NBA team in June, or alternatively signed to a G League or an international contract, he will be able to accept donations through the website and get started on his second dream of building the school.
On his website, under the “Get to Know Me” tab, Sanogo wrote: “Everything I have is because of Mali. I will become someone because of it. It has allowed me to grow and inspire others. I want to continue to inspire kids in Mali by showing them all that they can achieve. Sometimes people would come back and run camps in Mali. I looked up to them, so to be able to run camps myself in Mali is a full circle moment.”
