Gak's Return Includes Family Reunion

By Christy Cabrera Chirinos
HurricaneSports.com
 
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – A year ago, he seemed poised to be a contributor for the Hurricanes.
 
With Dewan Hernandez sidelined and Rodney Miller redshirting, Deng Gak – then a redshirt freshman – played in each of Miami’s first seven games last season, making the first start of his Miami career in the eighth game, a matchup against Yale in the HoopHall Miami Invitational.
 
But Gak’s season ended that December night on the floor of the AmericanAirlines Arena. He left the game with a knee injury and days later, had surgery that sidelined him for months.
 
Since, he’s gone through treatment and done the rehabilitative work to get back on the court, something he’s been able to do in recent weeks as the Hurricanes have started a new season.
 
And last week, while Miami was in Charleston, Gak had the opportunity to do something he’d never done before: face off against his older brother, Gorjok Gak, a center at Florida.
 
No, the brothers weren’t on the floor together at the same time, and maybe his big brother’s team got the best of his, but it was an experience that meant the world to Gak.
 
“Not many people can say they’ve played against their brother or sister in a high-level collegiate basketball game,” Gak said. “I’d never played against him before. That was the first time, so it was good to go out there and go against the team he’s on. It might have been better for him watching me play, since he couldn’t be out there. … It really meant everything, though.”
 
That sentiment is easy to understand, especially given how basketball has impacted both brothers’ winding journeys.
 
Deng Gak was only three months old and his brother just a toddler when their family moved from Egypt to Australia. There, the brothers grew up playing soccer before they grew tall enough that friends and family encouraged them to try basketball.
 
“We tried it and we loved it,” Gak said, simply.
  
Before long, the brothers joined the Savannah Pride, an Australian youth basketball program founded in 2006 to help better the lives of families from South Sudan.
 
It was while playing with the Pride that Gak and his brother met a growing number of young athletes and refugees from South Sudan who shared their background and were able to help the brothers understand more about their family’s home.
 
“The majority of the kids that had come into Australia, some of them were from single-parent homes and didn’t have much guidance. Having that little community we had, the Savannah Pride, that was big. A lot of my friends could have gone the wrong way, but that was something that helped direct them. It wasn’t just for basketball, it was about everything,” Gak said. “It was real cool to get to know some of them. My family moved to Australia in 1998 and the majority of the refugees started moving in the early 2000s. …
 
“All through kindergarten and first and second grade, there weren’t that many people that looked like where we were from, besides my family. So, as I got exposed to that community, it opened me up. I started learning more about where I was from from them … Some of them came over when they were like 8 or 9, so they had experiences they remembered from South Sudan and Egypt. I learned more about myself and where I was from because of them.”
 
Eventually, basketball brought Gak and his brother to the United States.
 
Gorjok would play at Victory Rock Prep in Bradenton before signing with Oklahoma State. A coaching change there paved the way for him to eventually enroll at Florida. Deng, meanwhile, played high school basketball at Blair Academy in New Jersey before signing with Miami.
 
And that, ultimately, set the stage for the brothers to have their shared moment last week at the Charleston Classic, even though Gorjok was sidelined by a shoulder injury.
 
Still, given all that brought them to that moment, the game was special, especially since Deng Gak is still trying to get back feeling like himself on the court after last year’s injury.
 
“I’m so grateful right now to be playing. When you have something taken from you like that, you appreciate it more. So I’m very grateful,” Gak said. “Not playing for an entire year, you feel like everybody else has a head start. You feel like you’re a little bit behind, so I just want to catch up once again, that’s one of my biggest goals. I want to be able to have an impact as much as I can. I feel like I have a chance to play and help our team win.”

And the Hurricanes believe he has the potential to do exactly that.
 
“He’s got a knack to block shots and he’s got the knack to be a presence at the rim,” Miami associate head coach Chris Caputo said of Gak. “I think he really had a good weekend here [in Charleston] with what he was able to contribute defensively. He really gives us the ability to block shots.”