Their tribulations began as soon as they set foot in America. Rostand Ndong Essomba, a quick, 6'0" point guard from Yaounde, Cameroon, was told back home that Faith Baptist North was offering him a full scholarship. He jumped through all the bureaucratic hoops, procuring a coveted I-20 form that grants permission for international students to apply for a non-immigrant visa to enter the country and study in the U.S.
But when Rostand arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta in October 2014, he says Faith Baptist North's founder, George Flint, took one look at him and told the 17-year-old African he was too short. Rostand says that Flint told him that if he wanted to stay in America, he had to cough up $2,000. "Where's the money?" Flint allegedly asked his new recruit.
Franck Tsoungui, Rostand's slender, sharpshooting 6'7" countryman, had left a stable situation at a prep school in Maine five months earlier, enticed by Flint's promises of a new program playing a powerhouse schedule that would expose his talents to Division I coaches. What Franck got was a merry-go-round of missed meals and cancelled games.
Mahmadou Ngoucheme had only been at Faith Baptist North for six weeks, but he packed plenty of suffering into that time. He was 7 feet tall, but that was about the only thing he had going for him as a U.S hoops prospect. He was raw, which was a nice way of saying he possessed few offensive skills, and he had a gentle disposition off the court—and on it.
What he really wanted was an American education, but after arriving in December 2014, Mahmadou had yet to attend a single class. Faith Baptist North had held no classes since mid-November.
Stefan Nakic-Vojnovic grew jaded early. The 6'5" shooting guard from Belgrade, Serbia, had been in Georgia the longest, since July, meaning that he had heard more broken promises than any of them. First there was the matter of the Faith Baptist North campus. There wasn't one, despite the brochure Faith Baptist North circulated to starry-eyed teens around the world via the internet, with photos of a beautiful lakeside compound and state-of-the-art athletic facilities.
The real Faith Baptist North was a football field and a rented gym housing a few unused classrooms behind a small church in Stockbridge, south of Atlanta. Stefan lived first in the basement of Flint's two-story home in Conyers, a few miles from Stockbridge, with as many as 20 other boys, then in a run-down apartment building, where he and some Serbian players pooled what money they had to buy a tiny electric heater to fend off the cold.
During the few weeks of classes held in the fall, Stefan says he took math tests for football players and laughed as Flint lectured students on avoiding bad people. Much of the rest of the time, he says he slept on cold floors and scrounged for food and free Wi-Fi hotspots. He sums up Faith Baptist North in three words: "a big nothing."
