BURBANK, Calif. — Stephane Nembot’s dreams are as big as he is.
The senior tackle on the right side of Colorado’s offensive line wants to start an orphanage in his native Cameroon, and he plans to start an organization that will provide opportunities for aspiring engineers in Africa to come to the United States and share their ideas.
Nembot said his mother is the inspiration behind his desire to open an orphanage.
His grandmother died giving birth to his mother, who spent part of her childhood in an orphanage. Nembot said when he was a boy, his parents would go to a poor section of his community and cook meals for people there on Christmas. It’s where he would like to return and build his orphanage.
“I was like, ‘Man, we barely can eat at the house. Why would you do that? Why would you get in debt to go cook for them?’ That’s the way I was raised,” Nembot said.
Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre boasted this week at the Pac-12 Conference football preview in the Los Angeles area that Nembot is now 6-foot-7 and 343 pounds after six months of hard work in the Buffaloes’ offseason strength program.
“He doesn’t have an ounce of fat,” said MacIntyre, who believes Nembot has become a sure NFL prospect as he enters his final season with the Buffs.
Nembot said he focuses only on how he can improve each day and how he can help his CU teammates improve. Linebacker Kenneth Olugbode said Nembot has completely changed in the past two years.
“He’s now a lot more vocal of a leader,” Olugbode said. “I think being in America has tamed him a little bit, just a little bit. He does talk a lot more and it helps our team a lot to have someone who has been there for a while and gone through so much to help lead us.”
MacIntyre had some of his players participate in a leadership class, in part so they learned how to be more vocal with teammates who were not doing their part. Nembot said he was always a lead-by-example player, but he has realized that doesn’t work with everyone.
“When I started to confront guys, I started to use the head because people understand things differently,” Nembot said. “If you can go approach guys differently, you get the best out of them.”
Nembot has come a long way during the past year. He struggled badly in pass protection during the 2013 season but began to develop into a powerful run blocker by the end of his sophomore season. He started slowly last fall as a junior and credits former teammate Marc Mustoe and offensive line coach Gary Bernardi for helping him see what he was doing wrong.
“He’s truly an example of improving and working hard every day,” MacIntyre said of Nembot. “Communication and understanding the terminology in football, it’s like a whole new language. He knows 13; I would say he knows 14 languages now. Just learning all of that and watching him grow and how hard he’s worked.
“The first year he was there he would say, ‘I’m playing football to get my education.’ The second year, about the second game, he came to me and I could see a whole new look in his eyes. He loved playing football. He said, ‘I can excel at this.’ “
