Minium: ODU Guard Sean Durugordon Pays Homage To Deceased Parents By Doing The Right Thing

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – Sean Durugordon was just nine years old when his mother, Delphine Durugordon, succumbed to gall bladder cancer. And although he was too young to understand the finality of death, he cried his eyes out when he was told he would never see her again.

His father, Shariff, was still in his life, but spent most of his time in his native Nigeria, where he and Delphine were raised. So that meant, at a crucial time in the life of a young child, Sean was largely without both of his parents.

It was Sean’s brother, Shariff Durugordon Jr., who took on the brunt of parenting young Sean.

Shariff was 19 and in many ways not ready to be a father. Yet he made the remarkable decision to adopt his younger brother and, with a big helping hand from Sean’s other siblings, Syndy, Shannon and Oderah, to raise him.

Six years later, on a visit to America, their father collapsed and died of a heart attack. Sean was the only person at home and found his father unconscious, a difficult experience for anyone, but especially so for a 15-year-old.

“I heard someone hit the floor,” Sean said. “I knew it had to be my father because he was the only other person there.

“I remember being in shock. I couldn’t really cry. For some reason, it took me weeks before I could cry.”

In some ways, Sean is still grieving, but his parents would be so proud of what he has done with his life since they passed on.

Sean could have succumbed to the temptations on the streets of his native New York City. Instead, he immersed himself in basketball, schoolwork and his Christian faith.

With a college degree already in hand, Durugordon will play the final two home basketball games of his senior season at Old Dominion when the Monarchs host Marshall Thursday at 5 p.m. and Georgia State Saturday at 7 p.m.

Shariff Jr and other family members will be in Norfolk Saturday night for Senior Night.

“I am so proud of him,” Shariff said. “In spite of going through all that he experienced at such a young age, he went to school and didn’t get in trouble, and went to college, graduated from college.

“He’s having an outstanding basketball career.

“He’s just a hard worker. He puts his head down and gets it done. That’s all you can ask from a younger brother.”

Sean is one of several key players who transferred to ODU in the offseason and has emerged as one of the best players in the Sun Belt Conference, especially on the offensive glass. At a tad under 6-foot-6, he is sixth among all players in Division I, and first among all guards in the nation, in offensive rebounding with 3.85 per game.

He is tied with teammate Robert Davis Jr. in scoring at 15.4 points per game and leads the team in rebounding with 8.6 per game. He and Davis are tied for seventh in the Sun Belt scoring race and Sean is third in rebounding.

And he’s finishing out the season in style. In his last four games, Durugordon has averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per game while making 50 percent of his shots. 

Mike Jones, ODU’s head basketball coach, said he’s never seen a more relentless player on the offensive glass.

“He was an offensive rebounder before he got here,” Jones said. “But I didn’t know he was going to be this good.

“We knew we were getting a great, great young man. We knew we were getting a hard worker. We knew we were getting someone who wants to be a great basketball player. But I didn’t know all we were getting with Sean.”

When an ODU teammate misses a shot, Durugordon crashes the boards with ferocity, witness the final minutes of ODU ’s 75-64 victory over Texas State two weeks ago.

He skied for the rebound of a missed shot and missed the putback. He skied again, got the ball, and was clobbered by a defender (no foul called) as he put up another missed shot. Again, he grabbed the rebound, leaping above taller defenders, and once again missed as he was essentially being tackled by a defender.

Again, for the fourth time, he went high, took the ball away from an opponent and put up a shot. Thankfully, the referees finally saw contact and called a foul.

The 10 second or so series of rebounds drew a standing ovation from the Chartway Arena crowd of 5,474 as he swished two foul shots.

Durugordon is a driven basketball player who succeeds more because of his work ethic than pure talent. In part, his passion for offensive rebounding came from his days on the playgrounds of Harlem and Queens.

“When you grow up in New York playing basketball, it’s a very guard heavy environment and they don’t share the ball very much,” Shariff said. “He had to get offensive rebounds to get shot opportunities.

“People didn’t begin passing to him until middle school.

“I’ve told him that if he got as high in the air when he dunks the ball as he does when he gets a rebound, he would be dunking over the rim.”

He learned early-on to trust his instincts.

“I kind of know where the ball is going to more than everybody else,” Sean said. “I learned to get off the floor quickly. And I also have long arms.”

There is much more to Durugordon’s rebounding than instinct. He plays with passion that springs from a lifetime of loss.

“Sean has always been kind of quiet,” Shariff said. “After my mom died, he became even more quiet.

“He began playing basketball a lot more. He spent a lot more time doing that. And he played with more intensity.”

That was, Durugordon said, a defense mechanism designed to shield him from his grief.

“I remember that I submerged myself in sports, especially basketball,” he said. “Basketball was the only thing that kind of kept my mind off the reality of the situation. I used basketball to keep my mind straight and focused.”

His family is deeply religious but for a while, Sean remembers asking, ‘Why me?’ when he prayed.

“I was really mad, especially after my father’s death,” Sean said. "I didn’t really understand what was going on and why this was happening to me.”

But as time passed, he realized that his faith taught him that he can’t understand why bad things often happen to good people.

“When bad things happened to me, I began to look at it like, in the end, God will make things right.”

Durugordon grew up playing basketball in his back yard with his brother. So, when his brother suddenly became a parent, it took some adjusting.

His brother, now 33, married and with a daughter, is parenting for a second time.

“It was definitely a weird dynamic, because we were so close as brothers,” Sean said. “I had to start looking at him differently. He was the father figure and the head of the household and I had to listen to everything he told me to do.

“But we were still able to maintain that brotherly bond.”

Sean has been away from home since he was a 17-year-old junior in high school. He moved to Canterbury School, a prep school in Connecticut, as a junior and then played part of a season at Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut.

He enrolled at Missouri after graduating early from Putnam and played sparingly before transferring to Austin Peay and then to Siena to move closer to family. When his coach left Siena, he transferred to ODU, turning down offers from schools such as Seton Hall.

He came to ODU with an undergraduate degree in hand from Siena.

“I can’t begin to thank Shariff, and all of my family, for all that they’ve done for me,” Sean said. “We had aunts and uncles that lived in New York. But, you know, Shariff, he was always there. He was the most mature.

“Everybody knew that he was going to be able to take care of me the best. I knew it, too.”

He also appreciates all that he learned from his parents in the short time that he knew them.

“They instilled in me that I needed to be respectful, to be a kind person, a kind individual, someone who likes being selfless and helping others,” he said.

“They told me, always do the right thing, no matter the situation, always do the right thing.

“That’s how I was raised. And I’ve tried to do everything they taught me.”

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram