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Franck Kepnang’s aspirations might sound like the daydreams of a fifth grader: play for the NBA, and build robots to help kids in underprivileged communities. But these are no childhood fantasies. Kepnang has spent the last three years as a University of Washington student and Husky men’s basketball center laying the groundwork for this exact moment—when his athletic and academic goals are so close he can taste them.

“It’s been a journey,” Kepnang says, chuckling at the understatement. That journey has taken him from his home in Cameroon to Massachusetts for high school, then out West for college, navigating life on another continent far from family, with multiple season-ending injuries along the way. But with a cheering squad of not only his basketball teammates but also his mother, mentors, physical and mental-health therapists, and an NBA-star scholarship donor, Kepnang feels primed to succeed. “It’s been a roller coaster of battling and overcoming adversity—the highest highs and lowest lows. Every time, I just have to work my way back up.”

Kepnang attributes his tenacity to his mother, Hortense Tchuisseu, who worked in a sugar factory in Cameroon’s capital of Yaoundé and competed all over Africa as a karate black belt. Now retired in Seattle and happy to cook Kepnang’s favorite dishes from home whenever the craving hits, Tchuisseu “had to do it all,” her son says. “She kept a constant drive to ensure I had every resource I needed, everything I wished, everything I couldn’t even comprehend.”

And it was hard to comprehend how fast things changed after a stranger first handed Kepnang—as a 6-foot-tall 12-year-old—a basketball. That stranger was Guy Jean Faustin Moudio, coach of the Cameroonian Junior National Team. Coach Moudio also ran a local basketball club with partner Joe Touomou, who’s still a mentor to Kepnang.

With that basketball, Kepnang hustled to catch up to his peers in gaining the basic skills, while his mom and Coach Moudio hustled in the background to line up a scholarship to a boarding school in America where he could excel in studies and in sports. Within two years the young Kepnang was on a plane to the East Coast, fearless and hungry for adventure. He became a top national high school basketball player, with every opportunity in front of him. And then COVID-19 stole the athlete’s senior year.

Kepnang decided to graduate early and enroll at the University of Oregon, but after a couple of years he was ready again to chase possibility. He entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, where student-athletes can publicly declare an intent to transfer without having to sit out a season.

He visited the UW in Seattle and everything clicked: “I felt an immediate sense of belonging,” he says. “I truly, in my soul, felt like I was where I was supposed to be.”

Kepnang is right at home in the UW’s Alaska Airlines Arena—the same court Detlef Schrempf, ’85, played on 40 years prior, before going on to NBA fame and creating the scholarship that supports Kepnang’s success.

Kepnang is a passionate student—another trait he traces back to his mother—with a dream of becoming a robotics engineer because he has always loved to create. His goals are set on finding automated solutions to make life easier for people in less resourced countries. He was proud to be accepted to the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, but ultimately opted to earn his undergraduate degree in geographical data science, a path that aligned well with both his career goals and his basketball training schedule. Though it’s a less linear path, he says the skills he’s learned are still directly applicable to his career goals. It’s been a constant balancing act to keep all the balls in the air, so to speak.

Mentors have supported that balance along the way, including UW Associate Professor of Geography Suzanne D. Withers and Professor of Sociology Alexes Harris, who’s also the UW faculty athletics representative. He notes that their guidance, wisdom and care have been instrumental to his well-being and success.

And success, on and off the court, has looked a lot of different ways. As the “big man” on the team, Kepnang is a major force. But for the past three seasons, knee injuries have required months of rest and rehabilitation. That experience has lent him a holistic approach to healing that comprises physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

The silver lining was earning his bachelor’s degree last year. “When you’re playing basketball, you spend eight hours a day committed to your craft, and then you have classes,” he says. “When I got hurt, it was kind of a blessing in disguise, because it gave me time to hit pause on the sports side so I could spend more time on the school side.”

A committed scholar, Kepnang takes his schooling particularly seriously because he feels a debt of gratitude to UW alumnus and NBA star Detlef Schrempf and the Schrempf family, who fund the endowed basketball scholarship that made Kepnang’s Husky experience possible. “Scholarships not only help kids like me play the game we love and reach our dreams, but help us with something we can rely on once the ball stops bouncing,” Kepnang says. “It would be a disservice to the donors to not get the best education possible, something you can rely on for life after sports.”

But life after sports is for the future. For now, Kepnang’s pursuing his UW master’s degree in information systems, specializing in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, which furthers his intellectual goals and also gives him one final season of eligibility to play collegiate ball in 2026. After that? “If I get the opportunity to go professional,” he says, “I have to take it. You only get one body, and I’m trying to use mine as much as I can.”

Still, a future after basketball looks pretty great, and he’s excited about a time when he gets to tinker professionally. “I just really want to create. In my perfect world, it’s just me on Sundays in my garage building stuff.”

Providing an assist

As local sports legends go, Detlef Schrempf is in a class of his own. A former Husky student-athlete turned NBA star, the German-born basketballer played for the Dallas Mavericks and the Indiana Pacers before spending six seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics, becoming a Pacific Northwest celebrity.

Photo by Bruce Terami

Still active in the UW community, Schrempf now helps student-athletes like Franck Kepnang via the Schrempf Family Endowed Basketball Scholarship, which he started in 2019. Support like Schrempf’s ensures that student-athletes’ financial aid truly meets their financial need, so they can fully focus on their studies as well as their sports.

Schrempf’s commitment is as much about showing up as about financial support; he’s often spotted in the stands during home games, cheering on his team. “I continue to be involved so we can create opportunities for all student-athletes who come here and take advantage of the great education the UW provides,” he says. “We want to create a community of support—so whether it’s a pro athlete or a pro at something else, they’ll come back and stay involved, too.”

Kepnang notes the impact of Schrempf’s involvement—of seeing someone so successful give back in this way. The student has made an impression on the mentor as well. “Franck embodies what it means to be a student-athlete here,” Schrempf says. “He’s a great student with a great spirit. Whatever limitations he faces, he overcomes with sheer will and determination.”

Schrempf’s No. 22 jersey may be retired now, hanging among the other legends in the rafters of the UW’s Alaska Airlines Arena, but his dedication continues to lead and inspire future student-athletes and lifelong Huskies.