GOLDEN, Colo — They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Colorado School of Mines men's basketball stars and roommates Sam Beskind and Majok Deng would agree — they’re acai bowl specialists!
"My recipe does not compare," Sam said with a laugh. "I taught him [Majok] how to make them, but the apprentice has become the master at this point."
Beskind and Deng have been best friends since high school and are now playing for the same college basketball team. Beskind transferred from Stanford last season, but this year he just felt the Orediggers needed one more piece — someone he knew who was playing at Pepperdine.
"Nobody wanted me when I put my name in the portal," Deng said when recounting his journey to Golden. "Sam talked to me, talked to my family, presented them this slide presentation on the great things about Mines and us living together and us playing together of course. Those are blessing that I could never fathom."
Beskind says they always try to soak in every moment together: "A lot of times on the way to a game or something like that we’ll say like how crazy is it that we’re actually here doing this together living the dream?"
Their pregame ritual?
"Before the game starts we just always tell each other to have fun because that’s our whole motto," Deng said.
In high school it was all fun. Rivals on the court, friends off of it.
"Trying to help each other improve the day before we would play each other in the state semifinal or whatever it may be just because we had similar visions and goals for our basketball careers."
A vision that’s come true.
"We’ll come home from practice and be like, what are we making for dinner? Oh shoot we forget to take meat out of the freezer," Beskind said with a smile. "We’ll sit and eat dinner and I’ll just be asking him questions about his journey."
Born in Kenya, Deng had to flee war, finding himself in refugee camps all over East Africa. At one point, he found himself having to cross the Nile river as crocodiles were nipping at a boat made out of banana leaves.
"I’m thankful to be alive and thankful to have my family," he explained. "I never thought in my lifetime that I would be in the U.S."
Two friends from completely different backgrounds can be a lesson. No matter if you're a blueberry, or crunched up granola — why not be blended together?
"Every morning, we shoot, go home together, make acai bowls. That's the stuff you remember. I’ll remember this year for the rest of my life," Beskind said.
Deng knows what these Mines bros have is special.
"This should be a lesson to everybody like, you can make a friendship with anybody," he said. "It’s corny but it’s cool. You know that I’m always with this guy and it could be like that for the rest of our lives and I hope it is."
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