THIS IS THE GET IN THE GAME PODCAST
WITH SCOTT LINEBRINK
After winning the national championship in 2021, the Baylor men’s basketball squad is looking to add another banner to the rafters this year. One the key players who could help the Bears do that is forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua.
A soccer player by nature growing up in Cameroon, he didn’t start playing basketball until the age of 16, doing so with a soccer ball and a makeshift basketball goal. He was later invited to a Basketball Without Borders Camp in Angola and was awarded a scholarship to the NBA Global Academy.
He moved to Australia in his later teen years to pursue a basketball career, which he parlayed into a college scholarship in the United States. He began his college career at UNLV, but after a coaching change he found his way to play for Scott Drew at Baylor, where he helped deliver Baylor’s first national championship.
In 2022, Tchatchoua was named the Big 12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year. But also in 2022, he suffered a serious leg injury in a game against Texas that has shaped much of who he is as a player and a person.
“It really taught me how life is really just a cumulation of ups and downs when we really focus on the earthly things,” he said on this week’s episode of the “Get in the Game” podcast. “I had to realize that my identity wasn’t tied to basketball.”
In this episode, Tchatchoua shares his story of moving around to different countries during his upbringing, how his faith in God was formed, and how it’s at the center of who he is as a man and a basketball player.
“Get in the Game” is part of the Sports Spectrum Podcast Network.
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