STORRS -- Amida Brimah hasn't read the story because he already knows it.
Also because he didn't know the story even existed on paper.
"There's a book?" Brimah asked, genuinely surprised. "I know the story, but I didn't know they wrote a book about it."
Yes, there is a book. It's called "A Migrant African Chief." We'll get to that.
There's also a phone. A Samsung Galaxy. It's Amida Brimah's old phone. He gave it to his father, Rashat Peregrino Brimah, when he was most recently home in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Amida is Rashat's only son, and he's the only member of his immediate family in the United States. Using the Galaxy, Rashat communicates weekly with his son. He tracks all of his son's stats, even if he doesn't know what they mean.
"He knows fouls," Amida said, chuckling. "And blocks. But he doesn't really know what's good and what's bad."
Here's why: Rashat has never actually seen Amida play in an organized basketball game.
"I have to come to the U.S.," Rashat Brimah said via message from his Galaxy, "or get satellite dish."
Which is expensive, and the Brimahs aren't exactly rich. They're not poor, either. They're roughly middle-class in Accra.
They're also famous.
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The book, "A Migrant African Chief," was published in 2001 by Muhammed B.P. Brimah, an attorney and former diplomat who served in Nigeria, Lagos and Switzerland. He's one of Amida's many uncles.
It's a thin book, 114 pages chronicling the lineage of a family that changed the demographics of Ghana and rose to prominence within the Muslim community.
"They paved the way for Nigerians to come to Ghana," Amida said after Friday's practice at Gampel Pavilion. "It was the first time. They went through all the struggles for all Nigerians who are in Ghana now."
The story begins with Alhaji Brimah, a prosperous cattle dealer and butcher born in the late 1820s in Ilorin, a Nigerian city with a large Muslim population. According to the book, Alhaji Brimah "grew up in the ranks of Muslim Warriors" and attained status in the Yoruba Tribe. In 1860, his selected candidate for the emir of Ilorin (essentially a prince) was not chosen, so he left on self-imposed exile, stopping only once when he reached a "big river" he couldn't cross. He trekked nearly 500 miles -- on foot -- from Ilorin to the Gold Coast.
Described in the book as a "towering man," Alhaji Brimah settled in Accra, where his wealth grew immensely from his cattle business and the trade of kola nut, a caffeine-containing fruit. On Fridays, he slaughtered cows, rams and goats and distributed them to the poor and needy.
His status and philanthropy soon netted a Chieftaincy title, making him Chief Alhaji Brimah I, the head of Accra's Muslim community. He sheltered many. He helped with businesses. He single-handedly built a Mosque in downtown Accra.
When Chief Alhaji Brimah I died in 1915, he left behind 26 children (it was, and still is in some regard, a polygamous culture). Several of his children would succeed him as Chief, and in 1970, Amida Peregrino Brimah V -- the 25th born -- would ascend to the throne.
His reign, as documented in the book, was much like that of Chief Brimah I: He re-established the long-lost communication with the people of Ilorin, he constantly helped the needy, he had 16 children who went on to become lawyers and journalists, many of whom migrated to Europe.
Among his sons was Rashat, born in 1947. Just because his father was Chief didn't make life any easier, Rashat said.
"We still had to hustle," he said. "We had a normal life like any other children. My dad was a disciplinarian."
Rashat Brimah left for England in 1971 to work and pursue education. He later returned to Accra as a building technologist, providing structural designs for houses. He had three daughters and one son, Amida Brimah, with his only wife. As a kid, Amida worked for Rashat, lugging the cement bricks that are used to build almost every house in the city. He remembers those days vividly.
And he retains a fuzzy memory from his only meeting with Chief Amida Peregrino Brimah.
"I met him once," Amida said. "We have a ceremony every year -- Eid al-Fitr. I came to the ceremony before he passed away. We ride horses. The chief rides a horse and stuff like that."
"I remember he was sitting up in his chair, like a chair they have for a king," Amida continued. "He was very old."
After a 28-year reign, Chief Amida Peregrino Brimah passed away in 1998 at 88 years old. His namesake, Amida Brimah, was 4 or 5 at the time. He couldn't yet grasp his family's history, the lineage of the Brimah dynasty, like he does today.
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In a line of highly respected Muslim chiefs and successful businessmen, you can't help but wonder the path Amida Brimah would have taken if Nana Baafi, his eventual guardian in the U.S., hadn't discovered the gangly 6-foot-10 teenager walking down the street four years ago in Ghana.
"He would have been an athlete," said Rashat Brimah, who at 67 years old stands 6-foot-3 himself but has never played basketball.
"For some reason, I thought I was going to play soccer," said Amida Brimah, who played his high school basketball in Miami. "I was very good at soccer. That's what I always thought."
Quickly scanning Gampel up and down Friday, he added: "I never thought I'd be in here, playing basketball right here."
Basketball was (and still is) hardly a mainstream sport in Ghana. There are no NBA players from the country. According to his sister, Omolara Brimah, Amida is famous solely "among his friends and family."
He's not the first Brimah to break through in hoops, though. One of his uncles, Lawal Peregrino Brimah, actually played on the Nigerian national team with Hakeem Olajuwon. As Amida comically puts it, he was "pretty good." Still, his efforts to convince Amida to try the sport were largely ignored.
"(Lawal) brought the hoop to my house and I shot a little," Amida said. "But I didn't get serious about it until Nana found me and told me, `I want you to play (in the U.S.).'"
As the next chapter in the Brimah story goes, Rashat Brimah had zero qualms about letting his 16-year-old son venture to America. After all, it was common in the Brimah family: Rashat moved to England in his mid-20s and Amida has extended family members all over the globe, including a cousin who attended the University of Bridgeport.
"Amida is respectful, dedicated and he knows what he wants in life," Rashat said. "It wasn't a hard decision for me."
What he wants, Amida said, is simply "to be successful." In Storrs, he follows another storied lineage. And while it's entirely too early to dub him the next great UConn big man, it's certainly reasonable to call him the next great UConn shot blocker. Late Saturday afternoon, he pounded a Sean Kilpatrick layup attempt into the ground, one of his three swats.
He's developing -- quite rapidly -- right in front of our eyes.
Or in front of the Samsung Galaxy screen, which will have to do until Amida returns to Accra and drops some American wisdom on his pops: Here, dad, is how you watch ESPN3.
kduffy@newtimes.com; @KevinRDuffy