South Sudan Never Far From The Mind Of Northern Arizona Suns’ Peter Jok

Peter Jok plays for the G League affiliate of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns

Peter Jok: professional basketball career has just started

Jok was born in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1994. A member of the generation of Sudanese children known as the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Jok’s day-to-day life was that of war and destruction as he grew up during the Second Sudanese Civil War.

The warsaw millions of lives were lost, child soldiers used, and entire villages decimated a brutal conflict. For young Peter, the conflict reached far too close to home.

Early in his life, Jok lost his father due to the war. He didn’t lose the memories many have of him.

“If you say his name, everyone in South Sudan knows him,” Jok said. “I didn’t know him that well but the stories that I hear from everyone else are great. (He) seemed like a great man.”

The tragedy left Jok and his siblings with the matriarchs of the family, his mom, and grandmother. Jok escaped the conflict through faith and family and joined his aunt and grandmother in the United States after a church group brought him here.

“I was really excited to come to America,” Jok said. “The main reason we came to America was for education. (I’m) trying to use that to go back and help people.”

Many refugees dream of returning to their home countries to make them better, but few have the resources to make it happen. Here is where Jok, 25, hopes to separate himself, thanks to an elite skill he’s developed, and a mindset to match.

Basketball wasn’t always a source of joy for Jok. The sharpshooting guard can trace his path in basketball not to a love of the game at first. The budding romance would take Jok a long way. He rose to the highs of being the No. 1 rated high school player in his class in the state of Iowa, and the lows of a devastating knee injury that forced him to miss time. As a result, much of the top-tier courtship stopped.

“I had every school in the nation (recruiting me) in ninth grade, so I could’ve gone anywhere,” Jok said. “But as soon as I got hurt, a lot of schools disappeared.”

Ultimately, Jok showed the resilience that has become his calling card. After a successful four-year career at the University of Iowa, Jok capped off his career by winning the collegiate three-point shooting contest.

These days Jok is a 6-foot-6 guard for the Northern Arizona Suns, an NBA G League team and minor league affiliate of the Phoenix Suns. Even though the season is over, Jok is preparing to compete with Iowa United in The Basketball Tournament, a 64-team, a single-elimination competition that begins in July with a winner-take-all prize of $2 million.

Jok is on a mission to change both the perception of his home country and the day-to-day situation within its borders, from an ocean away.

“My ultimate goal (is) trying to get to the NBA, make a lot of money, and then go back and help in South Sudan, (and) try and build a library or a school,” Jok said. “I feel like education is the key. If the kids get educated back home it’ll be a better place, because right now it’s not where we want it to be.”

“When you think about South Sudan, you think negative,” Jok said. “I’m trying to be part of the reason we turn it to a positive for the future generations. I want people to have their kids go back to South Sudan, I want to have a home in South Sudan and spend my time there with my people.”

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