No weight too heavy for defensive end Junior Gnonkonde

Posted Aug 28, 2015
It’s August 2008, and a plane lands in San Francisco. A boy gets out, stretches. It’s a long flight from Abidjan, a big city in Ivory Coast. They came to play basketball. Junior Gnonkonde is still 14 and rail thin. He’ll need to start lifting soon, but Junior already knows about strength. A karate background, growing up the second-youngest of eight kids — the first step of lifting is being mentally set. (Daily Tar Heel)

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