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Chris Low
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — The Austin Peay men’s basketball team had just suffered a tough loss, 88-82 at Eastern Kentucky, earlier this month allowing a lead to slip away in the final minutes.
In the locker room area, Hansel Enmanuel — the Governors’ junior guard and one of college basketball’s most inspirational players — met eyes with a shy high school freshman basketball player who attended the game with his family and had hoped to meet Enmanuel.
Enmanuel has captured the imagination of fans, opposing players and celebrities across the country with his high-flying dunks and uplifting play as he competes at the Division I level despite having one arm. His left arm was amputated just below the shoulder after an accident when he was 6.
He became a social media sensation as a teenager growing up in the Dominican Republic as videos of the amazing things he could do on the basketball court went viral. He has 1.5 million followers on Instagram and 2.8 million on TikTok, and everywhere he goes, somebody wants to meet him, take a picture with him or simply be in his presence. Austin Peay provides security for him for every road game.
But on this evening in Richmond, Kentucky, the high school freshman — who has a prosthetic limb — froze as Enmanuel approached him.
“We get those requests before every game, and I always ask Hansel because one of our promises to him when he came to Austin Peay was that it wasn’t going to be a dog and pony show,” said Governors coach Corey Gipson, who recruited Enmanuel to Northwestern State, where he played for one year before following Gipson to Austin Peay in 2023.
“We’ve told Hansel that he can say no if it gets to be too much, but he never does.”
Enmanuel smiled warmly as the young player tried to muster a few words, and his mom said, “Baby, don’t you want to say something?” As Gipson looked around, he could see tears welling up in the eyes of some of the Eastern Kentucky officials who were there.
Finally, Enmanuel offered an easy laugh and hugged the freshman as tears streamed down his face.
“Hey, it’s OK. Listen to me,” Enmanuel softly told him. “I know you’ve got something to say, but I want to tell you this: You can be anything you want to be if you’re willing to work for it. Everything I’ve gotten, I’ve worked for. I’ve never worried about what anybody thought about me. I’ve been willing to sacrifice and pay the price to put myself in this position. You’ve got to do the same thing, and you can be right where I am.”
By then, the boy’s mom was also crying.
“I’m not sure there was anybody there that wasn’t crying,” Gipson said.
For Enmanuel, 21, it has never been about what was taken from him at such a young age, but what he has been able to give to so many people.
It never has been about what he doesn’t have, but what he does have.
Never about what he can’t do, but what he can do.
And never about him, period, but about others.
“I think he understands that the torch he carries is a very heavy one, and it burns hot,” said Austin Peay senior guard Isaac Haney, who was with Enmanuel at Northwestern State and has known him longer than any of his teammates. “He pushes through every single day because he knows people are looking at him. I’m always amazed at how he attacks basketball and life in a way that people with fully functioning bodies don’t.
“So many of us are chasing the wrong thing. Every day, I feel like he wakes up and chases the right thing.”
Enmanuel, whose full name is Hansel Enmanuel Donato, understands he’s an inspiration for others, and not only in the sports world, although he acknowledged he probably doesn’t grasp the full scope of it.
“I just feel like that I’m doing my job the way that God wants me to do it,” Enmanuel said. “I want to get better every day. That’s why I have the mentality that I do, to do better for myself, to keep chasing my dream of making it to the NBA and never letting anything get in my way, and maybe that helps other people.
“Nothing can stop me. Never. I could have a million things in my way. I’m never going to stop.”
ENMANUEL’S EXAMPLE HAS changed the lives of countless kids looking for hope while dealing with illness or a physical limitation, but probably none more so than 16-year-old Josh Sexton of Buford, Georgia.
Having endured 39 surgeries and multiple cancer diagnoses, Sexton made his 11th grade junior varsity basketball team this season and will play AAU ball in the spring — all without a right arm. Sexton was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer) and had his right arm amputated when he was 8. He doesn’t have a clavicle or a shoulder blade on the right side, just ribs. Doctors said the tumor in his arm was the size of a brick.
“Hansel gave me a reason to play,” said Sexton, who first saw Enmanuel on one of his TikTok videos when he was still in high school. “I mean, if it wasn’t for Hansel, I don’t know if I’d have ever started playing basketball because the mental state that I was in with all the surgeries, all the cancer, all the injuries … I didn’t really know if I was ever going to do anything physical.”
Sexton has attended Gipson’s basketball camp at Austin Peay each of the past two summers. At the first camp, he hadn’t been out of a wheelchair for long and was just learning to walk and run again after doctors found a cancerous spot under his right knee. They were able to save Sexton’s leg but had to remove the growth plate underneath his knee and four or five inches of his tibia and replace it with bone from a cadaver, which required a year of treatment.
Sexton was undaunted. He met Enmanuel for the first time and even played a couple of games of one-on-one against him the second time he attended the camp.
“It didn’t go very well,” Sexton’s mom, Alishia, said with a laugh. “Josh actually played pretty good defense on him the first game, but he fell going for the ball in the second game, and Hansel went in and dunked.”
Gipson has remained in touch with the family, and Sexton attended Austin Peay’s game against Murray State last season and spent some time with Enmanuel in the locker room.
Sexton is grateful that Enmanuel hasn’t taken it easy on him at camp. They were doing a perimeter passing drill last summer, and Sexton was having a hard time getting open. Though Enmanuel has a short nub just below his shoulder and can brace the ball on it, Sexton has to brace the ball on his chest before passing or shooting.
“I was getting pressed up on by people guarding me, and I really didn’t know what to do,” Sexton said. “I wasn’t a physical player at all. I can still remember what Hansel told me, and he almost got mad at me. He said, ‘You’ve got to push off with your one arm to create separation, or you’re not going to get the ball.’ That was big for me, him giving me real advice and treating me like any other player.”
Enmanuel will never be mistaken for just any other player. Sure, he’s averaging just 2.1 points and about 12 minutes and has been been working his way back after having surgery in November to repair a torn meniscus in his knee. But his impact has been immeasurable across platforms that transcend sports.
Just last week, he was invited for a presentation at the White House. He has lucrative NIL deals with big-brand companies such as Oakley, Gatorade, Adidas, T-Mobile and Banreservas, one of the largest financial institutions in the Dominican Republic. He was featured in a national Gatorade commercial in 2022 as part of the company’s “Fuel Tomorrow” campaign.
Enmanuel also has a deal with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s ZOA Energy drink. All told, Enmanuel’s NIL deals add up to about $1.5 million and are all through companies that want to partner with him, as opposed to a collective tied to Austin Peay.
Gipson said the team recently was on a bus getting ready to head to a game, and Enmanuel was texting with Johnson about his new movie.
“Later on, we’re sitting at my house watching the movie, and Hansel hits up The Rock and says, ‘Hey, I’m watching with Coach Gip, and it’s a great movie,'” Gipson said. “Again, we’re talking about The Rock. But it’s like that with a lot of people, and it’s not just that they’re rooting for Hansel.
“They really admire him.”
Enmanuel grew up in one of the poorest communities (Los Mina) in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. His father, Salvador Donato, played professional basketball in the Dominican, and Enmanuel was raised by his grandmother, Bibelis Donato.
With his NIL income, Enmanuel has taken care of his family. He bought his grandparents on his mother’s side a church in the Dominican Republic to help with their ministry. He bought his mother, Katy Dominguez, a house in Pennsylvania. Next on his list is getting his other grandmother, Bibelis, to an Austin Peay game.
“I got her a passport and working on a visa next,” Enmanuel said. “She knows basketball because of my dad. She texts me a lot. She’s my purpose. My family is my purpose, everybody around me. That’s the type of heart that I’ve got.
“My heart is pure, and I love to serve. It’s just who I am.”
And he takes care of people beyond his blood relatives.
When Enmanuel was at Northwestern State, he supplied the team with sneakers thanks to his deal with Adidas.
Austin Peay’s baseball team won the Atlantic Sun Conference championship last season, and as a reward, Enmanuel saw to it that the players and staff all received Oakley sunglasses.
“Hansel is the poster child for what NIL is supposed to be,” Austin Peay athletic director Gerald Harrison said. “It’s not pay-for-play. It’s truly name, image and likeness that he’s capitalizing on, and the most impressive thing is that he’s sharing it with people. He doesn’t have to. He wants to.”
ENMANUEL WAS ONE of 13 new players on Austin Peay’s roster a year ago, Gipson’s first season as head coach at his alma mater, and the Governors made it to the championship game of the Atlantic Sun tournament. They’re 12-15 this season but have won three straight and are hoping to make another run in the conference tournament.
Enmanuel has never been very comfortable talking about himself and what he has been able to overcome. He’d rather talk about his teammates and his part in helping the team as opposed to the role model he has become off the court and in pop culture. After all, rapper J. Cole once highlighted Enmanuel in a video.
“I don’t want to be a victim. I’m not a victim,” Enmanuel said.
And good luck to anyone who treats him as such on the court because that’s when Enmanuel is most likely to go airborne and pin an opposing shot attempt on the backboard or go around his back with a dribble and soar in for a dunk.
“You can see it in his eyes if he thinks somebody might be going easy on him,” Haney said, “and I can promise you nobody here does.”
Robert Harris, Austin Peay’s head strength coach, said Enmanuel has forced him to be creative and in turn made him a better coach.
“The challenge with Hansel is making sure he’s not overworking that right side because he’s always wanting to do more, always wanting to do extra work,” Harris said. “We’ve found ways for him to do squats with a safety bar and he holds it with his right hand, or to hook up a band and use manual resistance to work all three phases of the shoulder on the left side.
“We talk through things, but he’s going to make sure he’s doing everything everybody else is. Even when he’s doing pushups, the only thing he needs is for somebody to brace him. He’s woke up a lot of people, in life in general, about always finding a way.”
Jake Olson can relate to Enmanuel’s experiences. He became the first blind player to compete in an NCAA football game in 2017 as a long snapper for USC. He’s also a 10-handicap golfer and regularly plays in tournaments.
Much like Enmanuel, Olson was a youngster when he faced an extreme challenge. Born with a rare cancer of the retina, Olson lost his left eye when he was 1, then had a second procedure when he was 12 that saved his life but cost him his right eye. Before losing his sight, he was invited to watch his favorite team, the USC Trojans, as then-coach Pete Carroll invited him to be a guest at practice. A few years later, Olson joined the team as a player and was able to snap in some games.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword, because on one hand, this is bigger than the sport, right?” Olson said. “I mean, partially why you’re doing this is to prove to yourself and others that you can do this despite not having your eyes or your arm. Of course, that’s going to draw inspiration for others who are similarly in your shoes. But the ultimate respect comes from the people you’re competing with or against, and whether it’s gamesmanship with players clapping and trying to throw me off or whatever, it’s what you want. You want people to come at you like they would anybody else.
“At the end of the day, you want to be known for being good at your craft.”
Enmanuel doesn’t allow his mind to wander back to the day when, as a 6-year-old, he was trapped under a concrete wall for hours after it collapsed on him while playing. He was rushed to the emergency room, where doctors were unable to save his arm.
“I don’t go back. I go day by day and take care of what I’ve got to take care of,” Enmanuel said.
Olson, who is writing a book and traveling the country for speaking engagements, said there were times that talking about his plight when he was at USC became a distraction. He wanted to be an inspiration but also wanted to be the best long snapper he could be.
“It’s emotional, man,” Olson said. “You see someone going through what you’ve gone through or you’re going through, kids coming up to me who were losing their eyesight, and that really puts you back in that moment of when you were also in their shoes. I’m sure Hansel would agree. It’s hard, those horrible memories of losing his arm and what that meant in the first couple weeks and months and years afterward, the frustration of learning how to tie a shoe or put on your clothes.
“There’s an emotional state that comes with it that’s difficult to describe, and because of that, it takes your focus away from what you’re doing, whether it’s making a free throw or a long snap. I guess part of it is protecting your heart from going down a rabbit hole of sympathy and memories you’ve tried to lock away. But you also know it’s bigger than just your journey.”
Enmanuel’s humility is a big part of what has endeared him to his teammates, but he also has his fun. Haney remembers some chatter in the locker room one day about Instagram followers.
Enmanuel chirped: “I had more than all of you before I was out of high school.”
Gipson calls Enmanuel, “Ten Bags.”
“I’ve never seen a person carry so much,” he said, explaining the nickname. “I think he does it on purpose sometimes just to sort of show off.”
Enmanuel shares a special bond with Gipson, who has been a mentor. Enmanuel spoke very little, if any, English when he left high school at Life Christian Academy in Florida and signed with Northwestern State under Gipson, who has gone to great lengths to help Enmanuel cross the language barrier.
Enmanuel said Gipson has followed through on everything he promised during his recruitment. Memphis, among other schools, also offered Enmanuel, but he was sold on Gipson’s vision.
“I wanted to show it with my loyalty, when I was in high school and since I’ve been with Coach Gip in college,” Enmanuel said. “It’s not just with words, but with action that you show loyalty. I’m really enjoying this process and can’t wait to see where it goes. I know I can get a lot better, and so can our team.”
Enmanuel isn’t a big talker, and as recently as last season, was still doing some of his interviews in Spanish. One of his most underappreciated qualities, according to Gipson, is how aware he is of everything going on around him.
“He knows who he is,” Gipson said. “Sometimes you don’t know who you are. Hansel knows exactly who he is. He’s very astute. He’s well observed, and he has a great feel for life.”
Where life will take him is not something about which Enmanuel worries. He knows he wants to play professional basketball. He knows he will never quit chasing that dream, and he knows every mountain can be climbed.
“I don’t really plan anything,” Enmanuel said. “That’s just the type of person I am, because God’s got my plan.”