Sudan, Omaha, GCU families molded Wur to soar

The supreme sacrifice that drives Lök Wur to make the most of his Grand Canyon education and basketball opportunities started on the plains of one of the world's worst war zones, Sudan, in the late 1990s when his mother and oldest sister, then age 4, navigated eastern Africa toward refugee camps as a path to the U.S.

Born after his mother's arrival in the heart of the Great Plains in Omaha, Nebraska, the continuing sacrifice of his family and open arms of an extended family straightened his high school path. It guided Wur to the better life that his mother, Elizabeth Gatkouth, envisioned for her future children and Wur's oldest sister, Angelina Jacob.

Wur is finishing a GCU master's degree this spring and thriving in basketball, as the WAC Sixth Player of the Year has been a key Lopes player for consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, including Friday's first-round game against Maryland at the Seattle Regional.

The sweet-shooting, 6-foot-9 forward with a highly defensive 7-1 wingspan only knew of his family's poverty growing up in North Omaha. He did not know what was behind it, but he watched his mother work multiple jobs to feed her relatives in America and Africa.

Elizabeth worked double-shift days at a meatpacking slaughterhouse, restaurant, casino and hotel. Meanwhile, Wur's big sister was raising him and his siblings like a single mother, although Angelina was only six years older.

Wur turned his social charm in the right direction and channeled his bright mind into an academic achiever with the loving structure of the Simpson family household for his final two high school years. That growing maturity led Wur to ask his mother and sister more questions to piece together his life prequel.

"Learning all that lit a fire within me and my siblings to use every opportunity we have here in the states for our mother and our family to put us in a better situation than what we came from," Wur said.

Whether it is his pro basketball ambition, potential South Sudan national team future or his altruistic non-basketball career goals, Wur already is lifting his family, Omaha's largest South Sudanese community outside Africa and GCU.

"He's our pride and joy," said Angelina, who is six years older than Wur. "You see something manifest in front of you. It just shows that you didn't go through all that for nothing."

Leaving Sudan

Lok Wur family — **Wur family with Simpsons (front left)**

Wur's father was a soldier in the Second Sudanese Civil War, when warfare and famine took more than 2 million lives between 1983 and 2005. Elizabeth lost track of her husband's whereabouts after he was detained. It was not until they fled Sudan by foot and bus to Kenya and Ethiopia refugee camps that they learned he relocated to the U.S. in 1995.

Through United Nations resettlement, their petition to join him in Omaha was granted in 1998 when Angelina was 4 years old. Their brother, Jacob, was the first son born there before Wur was born 14 months later in 2000.

"It's good and bad that don't know what went on because it wasn't easy," Angelina said. "There were a lot of traumatic events that we're just telling them about now."

Already facing a country in which she did not know the language or the customs, Elizabeth became a mother of three at age 21. Soon, she and Angelina were on their own to raise the boys.

Elizabeth sent large portions of her income to relatives in Africa, prompting Angelina to start a newspaper route at age 11 to buy household essentials ("21 a day, sign me up!" she said).

Wur's engaging personality also began to help the family.

"He's somebody who is going to find a friend anywhere he goes," Angelina said. "Lök can go anywhere, and he's going to make a family. With his teachers and coaches, he was the bridge between us and these families that would help us. He made profound connections where they would take him in and us by association."

Basketball opens doors

Wur played on his first organized basketball team as a seventh-grade student. He needed an outlet to rein in his ways, which were a stark difference from the reserved, quiet collegian he is today.

"As a kid, he did the most," Angelina said. "He was such a wild child. He was always getting into trouble. Wrong place, wrong time. Doing stuff he had no business doing."

Even as he followed his sister's academic path to make a daily one-hour round school trip from North Omaha to Papillion, Angelina said Wur was following the wrong crowds, was suspended for 19 days and "was going to become a statistic."

Enter the Simpsons.

Jim and Tasha Simpson teach and coach at Papillion South High School, where he attended.

"He claims I got in his face his freshman year, but I was two bleacher rows up," Tasha said. "I told him, 'You're going to be good, so keep your nose out of trouble.'

"I liked him from the get-go. He had a great personality and was always positive."

A new family

The Simpsons were getting to know Wur and becoming attached to him through extended basketball time. Jim is the junior varsity coach and varsity assistant, and Wur became friends with a teammate who was their oldest son, Isaac. Two years older, Isaac gave Wur the long rides home often.

The Simpson invited Wur to stay overnight often because it would be easier when the next practice was in the morning, but Wur always wanted to go home.

"I was nervous about it," Wur said. "I was so used to being around my family. It just didn't sit right with me yet."

One night, when Wur, Isaac and Tasha were standing around the Simpson kitchen island, Wur asked Isaac to check with his mother if he could stay overnight.

"Tell Lök yes," Tasha told Isaac with Wur next to him.

Wur never left until he went to college.

Having Wur move in with her family partly felt natural to Tasha, who grew up with nine adopted brothers and sisters and 40 other children who temporarily lived with them out of need. Her father, Bob Brandt, served as executive director of the Nebraska Children's Home Society, the state's largest private adoption agency, and now is a board member for Brandt House, a nonprofit organization that helps families get into homes.

"We are so thankful that Lök has become part of our family," said Tasha, who attended GCU home and away games this season and walked with Wur, Elizabeth and Angelina on Senior Night. "He's just one of us. We treat him like our son. Our kids don't know any different than that he's their brother.

"If we can help other people, that's a good thing and look what we got out of it – a great relationship with a family, especially Lök."

That was not the case initially, with Elizabeth at odds with her son about his wish to consolidate his life with the Simpsons amid his junior year.

"Living in a poverty-stricken environment, it was tough to stay focused and to be on that journey of striving for a basketball scholarship," Wur said. "Over time, she understood."

Elizabeth had been the one imparting on her children to change the family narrative through education opportunities.

"She is very appreciative now," Tasha said. "She struggled with him and the idea a lot. There's a lot of non-trust with the South Sudanese population. Immigrants don't always get treated correctly, and they get taken advantage of. She didn't trust me at first because she wondered what I was trying to get out of the deal."

Elizabeth eventually saw what the Simpsons wanted for Wur and how they held him to academic and behavioral standards. She made more drives to Elizabeth's home than ever, so that Wur could be around his siblings.

After Tasha enforced nightly study habits, she regularly rewarded him with trips to the high school gym ("my safe space," he said) and rebounded for him from 10 p.m. to midnight. Before graduating, Wur set school records in a senior season with 21-point and 10-rebound averages.

The late-night ritual remains for the past two years at GCU, where Wur frequents the arena and practice facility on late nights for extra shooting with a friend instead of Tasha.

"Their (the Simpsons') home was where he needed to be because they provided stability he couldn't find at home," said Angelina, who works in manufacturing in North Dakota. "It was the right family. It couldn't be just any family."

College life

Wur began college with a redshirt season at Oregon in 2019-2020 and played sparingly over the next three seasons in Eugene. He ended his Ducks tenure by staring three NIT games, but only had averaged 8.1 minutes in 51 career appearances there.
With a COVID waiver providing him two more years of eligibility, Wur transferred to GCU in 2023 after graduating from Oregon in political science and international studies.

"I needed a new environment where I could thrive and be myself, and I really found that at Grand Canyon in all aspects," Wur said. "I needed a place to maximize my capabilities on and off the floor."

Wur quickly earned a reputation as a beloved teammate and a diligent worker at GCU, but the results did not click on the court last season.

JaKobe Coles and Lok Wur — **Coles and Wur**

Wur was averaging 2.6 points and making 18% of his 3-point shots from November to January. As GCU closed strong for WAC regular-season and postseason titles last year, so did Wur. He averaged 10 points per game and made 42% of his 3-pointers in February and March.

This season, Wur is posting career-high averages with 8.7 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.2 blocked shots and 1.1 steals in 21.7 minutes per game. A 37% 3-point shooter this season, Wur made three 3s and posted 12 points and four rebounds Saturday night in the Lopes' WAC Tournament championship while teammate JaKobe Coles was in foul trouble.

"Lök had an amazing tournament," Coles said. "From the defensive end to the offensive end, he was locked in. Lök is one of the hardest workers I've ever met. He's a very great dude. He's down to earth. He's about his business. He's very focused. I can't thank him enough. He's an amazing player."

Angelina said Wur should have gone to GCU from the start of his college career because of the Christian fit with their family foundation and how she has seen his reserved strength develop.

"He knows his coaches and teammates care about him as a person and a player, and that means a lot to him," Tasha said. "It's an incredible atmosphere.

"It was quite relieving (to see his basketball breakthrough) because he had worked so hard for so long and hadn't got anything going for so long."

More to come

Wur took his first trip to Africa last summer, visiting a former Oregon teammate in Egypt and a small town on the Sudanese border. Those first steps onto Sudanese soil were "mesmerizing," but he only could go so far because the region remains unstable 14 years after South Sudan gained independence.

Wur was placed on a 50-player watch list for the South Sudan national team, which experienced a surge in success and popularity at the Paris Olympics with former NBA star Luol Deng's leadership.

Wur hopes he can play for South Sudan in upcoming qualifying tournaments and the World Cup, but he also has interest in doing work that benefits South Sudanese communities in America or in Africa.

"What people see is the tip of the iceberg," Angelina said. "He is somebody with profound talent and work ethic. The sky's the limit. Grand Canyon was so necessary for him at the time he needed it."

It would be a fulfilling full circle for Wur's family to see him don the jersey of South Sudan, where his mother and sister walked across to depart for safer land. He is 11 years older than the nation.

"I always knew I would accomplish something big one day, no matter the journey," Wur said. "I just had that feeling inside, and my family believed in me."

Each family – his birth family, the Simpson family and his GCU family.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

Leaving Sudan

Basketball opens doors

A new family

College life

More to come

Players Mentioned

JaKobe Coles

Lök Wur

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