Education first, sports second. Former NBA player and Stanford University athlete, Chikezie Jake Okpala — also known as KZ — has lived by these values all his life.
During a late-May sitdown on the Stanford campus, Okpala spoke about his journey and how he balanced life as a student athlete, something many students at Palo Alto High School have to manage.
Following Okpala’s basketball career, which ended in 2023, he returned to Stanford, where he is majoring in communications, continuing the degree he originally disrupted to play professional basketball. Okpala is set to graduate June 14, at the end of the end of the 2025-2026 school year.
Okpala said his parents expected that he performed well in his academics, so basketball was always a second priority.
“Both of my parents were Nigerian growing up, so they really instilled education first.” Okpala said. “I would do my work during break and lunch, and after school I would practice [basketball].”
According to Okpala, even once it was clear he could play basketball at the collegiate level, his father still insisted that academics were a more important factor when deciding on a college.
Okpala said that in his senior year, he received an offer from Stanford and despite staying focused on his grades leading up to senior year, he got a C grade in AP Calculus.
“When I signed, there was a clause with my contract that I have to get Bs or higher,” Okpala said. “Because I got a C my senior year, my coach … said, ‘KZ, the dean of admissions has deferred your enrollment.’”
Okpala said he was devastated upon hearing he was deferred due to Stanford’s academic rigor and high expectations.
“I cried, deleted all my social media for 24 to 48 hours,” Okpala said. “I was distraught.”
After Okpala’s deference, Stanford’s head basketball coach at the time, Jerod Haase, called Okpala and proposed to him the option to redshirt his freshmen year where he could not play the first half of the year until he proved to Stanford that he is worthy of balancing basketball and academics. While redshirting, players are not permitted to compete in games; however, they can practice with the team and maintain that one year of college basketball eligibility.
“Coach Haase called me,” Okpala said. “He told me, ‘You can still come to school, but you’re going to have to redshirt your freshman year.’ I wasn’t supposed to, but I redshirted.”
During his time at Stanford, Okpala averaged 10 points per game his freshman year and then during his sophomore year he averaged 16.8 points per game, which resulted in him being awarded first team PAC-12, team MVP, and a Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year award semifinalist.
Okpala went on to be the 32nd pick in the 2019 NBA draft after two seasons with Stanford. His professional career lasted four years spanning time at the Miami Heat and the Sacramento Kings.
According to Okpala, he now has more free time, which allows him to pursue his fields of interest.
“With all this free time, I’m getting to explore more things that I’m passionate about,” Okpala said.