By mid-afternoon, his National Letter of Intent had been signed, sealed and delivered — by fax and by express mail — to Maryland. He had conducted two interview sessions and posed for pictures.
Every part of Kabongo's National Signing Day seemed to go off without a hitch.
Well, everything but the official signing part.
National Signing Day officially begins at 7:05 a.m., when athletes are allowed to begin faxing their signed letters to their chosen colleges. But two hours passed and Maryland still hadn't received a fax from Fairfield Prep.
By then, the Maryland coaching staff was well into panic mode.
"They started calling here around 9, they couldn't find me in my office so they called at least five offices before they finally got a hold of me," Prep coach Rich Magdon said. "They're were saying, 'Where is he? Where is he? We can't get a hold of him. What's going on?' They were starting to worry that some other college kidnapped him so he wouldn't sign."
But before everybody truly lost their heads, Fairfield Prep's two-time all-state and Connecticut Post all-star lineman nonchalantly sauntered into Magdon's office.
"I said, 'We'd better take care of this now because these guys are having a heart
Once that was done, Kabongo could finally enjoy the experience. He signed his ceremonial letter in front of his mother, Magdon, Prep athletic director Bob Harris and communications director Colleen Adams.
"I feel blessed, I feel lucky," said the 6-foot-3, 285-pound senior, whose mother brought him to greater Bridgeport from the Democratic Republic of Congo six years ago.
"A lot of people would love to be in my shoes. It's been great and I've enjoyed every second of it."
On a conference call with ESPNU, Maryland fans got to ask Kabongo — who had been ranked among the top 100 prospects in the country and No. 1 in Connecticut by Rivals.com — a range of questions.
One asked if academics played a role. Kabongo said yes. He wants to major in international business and it helped that Maryland is close to Washington, D.C.
Another asked which team he was looking forward to playing against.
"Boston College," Kabongo said, because its interested in him soured when then-coach Tom O'Brien left for North Carolina State.
"I was leaning toward them, but it didn't go so well after Tom left," Kabongo said.
What ultimately steered Kabongo was Maryland assistant Kevin Lempa, a Fairfield Prep and Southern Connecticut State graduate who recruited Kabongo while serving an assistant coach under O'Brien at Boston College.
As promised, Lempa kept recruiting Kabongo when he landed on Ralph Freidgen's staff at Maryland.
Another fan asked Kabongo if Maryland was his first choice.
"Well, I looked a lot other places," said Kabongo, who had at least eight Division I-A schools, including Florida, Notre Dame and Colorado. "But I guess it ended up being my first choice."
Kabongo, who had 15 sacks, three fumble recoveries, an interception for a touchdown and averaged six tackles in two all-state seasons senior defensive end, is the second major college recruit to come out of Fairfield Prep in the last three years. He joins former lineman Garrett Brown, now at Minnesota.
"Today is a great day, for Maska and for our family," said his mother, Odette Kalenga, whose older son, Kabeya, is a star basketball player at St. Luke's in New Canaan. "I'm very happy for him and we're very blessed."
But now Masengo Kabongo's life becomes about excelling on another level at Maryland.
"Obviously, it's taken a lot of hard work to get here today," he said. "I'm willing to do the same thing at Maryland, to work hard and see where it takes me."
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