Deng Reng, a Wheaton North High School graduate who played professional basketball overseas, died Nov. 1 after a car accident in Aurora. He was 26.

Reng's family left war-torn South Sudan and eventually settled in Wheaton, the Daily Herald reported. The Montgomery resident was a 2019 Daily Herald DuPage All-Area selection and a three-year varsity player for the Falcons.

"Just heartbroken for the family," said Dave Brackmann, the former Wheaton North boys basketball coach who had Reng on his varsity team for three seasons before Reng graduated in 2019.

Brackmann, a Wheaton North math teacher and golf coach, said he had known Reng since "little kid camp." He had also coached several of Reng's relatives.

"Besides being a very good player, his smile lit up a room," Brackmann said. "He was a really hard-working, good person. I never talked to anybody, whether an adult or a kid, that didn't have good things to say about Deng. It's really a shocking thing."

The 6-foot-6 forward played in 124 games with 100 starts at Ferris State University, according to the Daily Herald. As a freshman in 2019-20, he helped the Bulldogs win a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship and reach the NCAA Tournament, according to his Ferris State athletics biography. He averaged 15 points, seven rebounds and a block per game as a Wheaton North senior while shooting better than 50 percent from the floor, the biography states.

After college, Reng played professionally for Angeli in the North Macedonia-Super League during the 2025-26 season, according to Eurobasket.com. He averaged 11.9 points and 7.0 rebounds in 18 games. Brackmann said Reng had been "figuring out his next steps."

Reng's path to Wheaton began thousands of miles away. In a 2020 interview with The Ferris State Torch, Reng said his family left South Sudan in the late 1990s. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 2000. The family came to the United States in 2001, stayed briefly in New York, moved to Chicago and then settled in Wheaton.

Reng told the Torch he was inspired by former NBA players and South Sudan natives Manute Bol and Luol Deng, with whom he said he had "some relation."

"Hopefully one day I can go back and make a difference, that's really why I play basketball," Reng told the Torch. "That's what drives me every single day."

Brackmann said that after news of Reng's death broke, he sent text messages to Reng's former Falcons teammates. They responded with photos, memories and messages.

"It's hard to even believe it's real," Brackmann said. "We'll come together and do the best we can to remember him."

Ferris State Men's Basketball posted a tribute on Facebook, calling Reng "a true Bulldog, an awesome teammate and a great person."

A GoFundMe page organized by Angelina Reng had raised $26,840 from 371 donations as of its most recent update.