Coming to America

"I want to be a change in this world. I don't want to be fake or known as a hypocrite. I don't want to be cool with you because I'm trying to get something from you. I like people for who they are, not for what they can offer me. I want to play professional tennis so people can remember me as one of the few players from my country who made it to that level.

I want to be a part of history," said Karim Fotso, who was born and raised in the motherland, Africa. His home country is Cameroon which is located in Central Africa. At the age of 19, Fotso played his first singles and second doubles match for the men's tennis program at Prairie View A&M University.

Fotso arrived in America in 2008, when he went to visit his uncle in Florida. "It was a huge difference. I never saw that many highways. It looks like Europe. The JFK airport is so big. It's the biggest airport I have ever seen. I was also excited because I attended a tennis camp in Tampa Bay Florida. It was tough and a really nice experience to play with Americans. I usually play with Europeans and Africans," says Fotso, when he first experienced what America had to offer.

Tennis has been the highlight of Fotso's life for 11 years. "One day I was in the living room with my dad and he was watching TV and he switched to a channel and it was showing Wimbledon, one of the biggest tennis tournaments on grass in England and I saw Pete Sampras. I have been a fan and player of tennis since then."

Fotso also expressed the radiant difference in tennis played in America and tennis played in Africa and surrounding countries. Fotso said, "The level in America is of course way higher. You have a lot of UTSA centers and talented kids who get professional practice with coaches and get the chance to play in tournaments to better their play. America is the best place if you want to improve in a sport you play, in my opinion."

With Africa and Texas being over 10,000 miles apart in distance one could pose an interesting question as to why Fotso came so far away to attend school. Having originally attended North Carolina Wesleyan College which is a division III school, Fotso was eager to experience a D I-A school. Regretfully after NCWC did not offer Fotso a scholarship, men's tennis coach John Cochran of PVAMU did. Fotso packed his bags and traveled to the small town of Prairie View, where he was also further delighted by the school's recognized engineering program which is his major.

The men's tennis program at PVAMU won the SWAC 2010, title Fotso's first year as a member of the team. "I didn't play, but I was really happy for the guys, they pulled out tough wins against Alcorn State, Jackson State, and Arkansas Pine Bluff. It was pretty good for us to win with a team of mostly freshmen," says Fotso.

In the 2011 SWAC championships Fotso had the liberty of actually being a part of the effort, though he feels as though he and his team were not mentally prepared to win, he says, "We were mostly prepared. I honestly don't know what happened. I think in our mind we predicted we had already won against Jackson State and we focused on winning against Alcorn in the next match instead of focusing on playing Jackson State. We took them for granted and they fought hard and won." Fotso also felt as though he let his team down, "At first I was really sad, I had a lot of feelings. I felt like I had come so far and I didn't deliver in my performance. I feel like the overall loss was because of me, I feel like I didn't help my team when they needed me most."

Although his team lost the SWAC title, Fotso is cheerful in thoughts of obtaining the win in 2012 and is enjoying what we call "The American Dream."