Nor is it just about the two-day trip she made — when just 17 and leaving her family and her country for the very first time — from Nigeria to the United States.
Leaving Lagos, population close to 20 million, she would now call Jacksonville College, a tiny Baptist school in Texas with an enrollment of fewer than 600 students, her home.
That trip bore shades of Obi Toppin’s first revelation when he left New York to come to Dayton and join the Flyers some nine years ago.
He once told me how he had been confused when he first boarded his flight and heard it was headed to Ohio. He thought his new college was in Daytona, as in Florida.
“I thought I was going to Florida,” the 6-foot-2 Okih said the other day. “Some people at home had told me Jacksonville was in Florida. I had no idea there was a Jacksonville in Texas.”
What makes her journey so incredible though is not simply where she came from, where she ended up — a town of 14,000, Jacksonville is 114 miles southeast of Dallas — or how long it took.
It’s the way she has handled herself in the 3 ½ years she’s been here in the U.S. without going home — all so she can follow a dream.
“I cannot imagine coming over here at such a young age — by yourself, knowing you won’t be able to go back for a long time — and being that mature and independent and figuring life out,” Wright State coach Kari Hoffman marveled after practice the other day.
“And she’s done a great job of that.”
Later, Okih tried to explain how she’s tackled that task:
“Yes, it took a lot of courage. I had to grow up quick, and be more like an adult. But I think it goes back to how I was raised. I’m from a very disciplined family and my parents trained us if we go anywhere in the world, we’re going to make our way and not do bad things.”
Even though she had that solid foundation, there were times she felt unmoored, something like Dorothy in that house sent spinning out of Kansas through the sky.
When she left Lagos, she said she flew to Ghana, then Washington, D.C., then Dallas: “It really was a long flight, and I felt like I was traveling through time.
“I’d get into another country and all of a sudden I was back almost at the same time as it had been in the place I’d just left.”
While that was just clock variations based on the earth’s latitudes, she often does seem to be a person who’s come from another time, a time before much of the college sports world was defined by the ever-shifting flirtations with self-promotion and NIL enhancement over all else.
“You don’t have to spend too much time around her to see how strong her character is,” said Terry Gray, the longtime Texas coach who brought her to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2022.
“She’s not trying to pull anything over on anybody. She’s just so genuine, so appreciative and, in this day and age, that’s really refreshing.”
He said she came here to play basketball and be a student and she’s done that: “Academically, she’s just so smart and driven. Her first two semesters here she was a 4.0 and I don’t believe that’s changed.”
On the court, he said she initially was a 17-year-old who was new to the sport and often playing against college players four and five years older.
Although Gray had brought her and another player, Chidera Ezeilo, from Nigeria to Jacksonville College, he retired just before they started to play for the Lady Jaguars and moved back to Houston where he now coaches a team of former players that colleges play in exhibition games.
While Okih is still close to Gray and his wife Tina and regularly visits them — she calls them her “American family” — she had to launch her junior college career here with a coach she did not know and a team that eventually, through injury and defection, dwindled to six players.
Although her basketball skills were still raw and undeveloped — she’d played the sport just three years before coming to Texas — she had a strong work ethic and began to shine, especially in her second season at Jacksonville.
Her breakout performance came against Coastal Bend Community College when she pulled down 29 rebounds and scored 22 points.
“Every ball I saw I was determined to get,” she said.
She ended the season averaging 10.4 points and 11.9 rebounds a game. She received all-conference honorable mention honors and was named her team’s MVP.
With so few players she had been on the court — in games and especially practices — a lot and her knees paid the price.
She developed tendonitis in one and an MRI revealed a slight tear of her meniscus and bruising in the other, she said.
After getting her associate degree, she moved on to the University of Incarnate Word, a private Catholic school in San Antonio last season. She ended up being medically redshirted and looked forward to a healthy campaign for the Cardinals this year.
But she said the coach was fired after the season and the new coach told her: “We’re not sure if you can help us. You might not be a good fit for the program.”
She said it was suggested she enter the transfer portal.
“I didn’t know anything about it or how it worked but I put my name in,” she said.
Wright State — in need of post players — saw her size and some of her stats and reached out to her.
“I didn’t know anything about Wright State, but when they made the offer I wanted to take it,” she said.
Once she got off the Greyhound and into the Raiders practice gym at the Mills-Morgan Center, it became evident — especially after having been sidelined for a season by injury — that she just needed more court time and coaching to blossom in her first foray into Division I basketball.
Okih has played in 14 of the Raiders’ 16 games this season — and made four starts — but it’s been a feast or famine season for her so far.
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
In the third game this season, she scored 16 points against Wilberforce, the nearby NAIA school. And she had solid efforts against IU Indy and Air Force
But sometimes hampered by turnovers and fouls, she’s played limited minutes the last few games and didn’t play at all Friday night in the Raiders’ 82-71 victory over Detroit Mercy.
Since the 6-10 Raiders lost 6-foot-3 senior Chloe Chard Peloquin to injury nine games ago, they have just two players taller than 5-foot-11: Okih and 6-2 Florrie Cotterill from England, who also has played limited minutes.
“Grace has helped us win games this year,” Hoffman said. “She just needs reps and needs to be coached really hard. There is potential there.
“I’m extremely proud of her. She’s really coachable and we want her to develop into the player she can be. She could really help us here.”
‘A whole new experience’
Okih didn’t start playing basketball until she was about 13 and said she didn’t take it seriously until a couple of years after that, in part because she said “a lot of my family members didn’t support me playing at first.”
Her dad especially had to be won over.
“Before me, my older sister wanted to play but my dad was against it,” she said. “And when I first started he said, ‘No.’ He thought it was a waste of time.”
She said the principal at her school – “he’s into basketball,” she said – saw her size and wanted her to come out for the school’s team.
After she explained her situation to him, she said he visited her father and told him he thought she had the potential to be a good player and could represent their state and travel and one day possibly get a college scholarship.
Her father and mother were open to that and eventually she did represent their state in age-bracket tournaments around the country.
A Nigerian talent scout spotted her and eventually told Terry Gray about her.
“She came under my radar when she was 15 and signed with me the next year,” Gray said. “She’d already graduated from school, and I brought her over to the U.S. when she was 17.”
Okih said the little she knew about America had come from a few TV shows she’d seen — “Nickelodeon,” she mentioned — and some movies and music:
“Oh yes, I know Beyoncé and Chris Brown and Cardi B and Nicki Minaj and Usher, people like that.”
She also knew a little about the NBA and especially the WNBA, where some players of Nigerian heritage have been standouts.
When we spoke the other day, she mentioned Dallas Wings’ guard Arike Ogunbowale, the former Notre Dame guard who was a WNBA All Star.
She talked about the Ogwumike sisters:
Nneka, now a Seattle Storm power forward, played 12 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, was the league MVP, a six-time All Star and has led the WNBA Players Association since 2016.
Her younger sister Chiney starred at Stanford and with the Los Angeles Sparks and became the first black player and the first WNBA player to host an ESPN radio show.
There have been several marquee players with Nigerian roots in the WNBA, most notably now Kiki Iriafen, the rookie star of the Washington Mystics.
Okih said one day she hopes to play professionally, if not in the WNBA, then overseas.
The first step in that dream was college basketball in the U.S.
And while she said she missed the energy and the “vibe” of Lagos, she said Jacksonville College was a good first stop for her:
“It wasn’t a bad experience. I didn’t know what to expect back then.
“Now I know there are bigger and better schools out there, but it turned out to be a good place to help me adapt to a new life, a new culture, a whole new experience in the U.S.”
‘She has never looked back’
At Wright State she shares an apartment with four other players. The new players and the international players are all together, she said.
“Here at Wright State, I feel like I’ve found a family that’s really, really welcoming,” she said. “Everyone is willing to help you when you are in need.”
And Hoffman said the same about her:
“She has won over the hearts of all her teammates. They all love her. It’s because she has a huge heart. She really cares about others and doing the right thing.”
The other players who have cars give Okih rides, though she said she’s slowly been learning to drive.
Coming to America has meant a lot of firsts for her, including eating her first time at McDonald’s: “I was so excited, but then I found out I don’t like cheese on my burger … Really, I miss my food from home.”
Over Christmas break, when the other players went home, she stayed here. It wasn’t quite a “Home Alone” situation, though she did say she took herself out on “solo dates” to the movies.
“I just called an Uber,” she said.
She bought herself some presents, she said, and before the team left there was a Secret Santa exchange.
And her coaches included her in their Christmas gatherings.
Christmas Eve she spent with Hoffman, her husband, Jimmy, who is a Raiders assistant coach and their three children. She went to church with them and especially played with the kids.
Christmas Day she spent with the family of assistant coach Lauryn Fox.
She said she does miss home, especially her younger brother Joel, who has Down syndrome.
“I would take him everywhere with me and try to look out for him,” she said. “Most people love him, though some random people would pick on him sometimes. I tried to be there to protect him.”
That doesn’t surprise Hoffman.
“She’s just an awesome person. She knows who she is and she’s willing to work for what she wants.
“From the day she stepped off that Greyhound bus, she has never looked back.”
Out in Texas, Terry Gray agreed:
“It’s hard to knock her off course. She knows what she wants to do and I’ll enjoy watching her get there. I think the best is still in front of Grace.”
That’s why her journey is so incredible.
And, as it turns out, she’s brought someone along for the ride.
“Oh Lord, my dad is feeling all good now,” she said with a laugh. “He tracks all my games and gives me feedback and encourages me.
“He tells all his friends his daughter is in the U.S. playing basketball.”
He tells them all his daughter is a Wright State Raider.
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