Nigeria Beat USA + Nostalgia

 I just finished watching Nigeria's Olympic Basketball Team defeat our Team U.S.A. in a practice game in prep for the real thing in Japan. It was a first effort by both teams and could easily be an indicator of the teams' strengths and weaknesses. It was clear to me that this game was not being taken lightly by both teams. I was cheering for our guys, but by the fourth quarter when it appeared that Nigeria might upset us, I suddenly found myself cheering for the Nigerians to win. That's exactly what happened. The green and white beat the Red, White and Blue. 

 A team from the continent of Africa has never beaten a basketball team from the Untied States before. How good must the Nigerian players feel being the first. Forget, this was a practice game. It was a W. The Nigerian players will not only be heroes in their own country but in all the countries of Africa. It is probably a good time to be sure all my readers understand, there was no dearth of NBA players on the Nigerian team. Over the years the countries of Africa, primarily of West Africa, have sent the NBA some fabulous athletes, beginning with legendary Hall of Fame center for the Houston Rockets, Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon. And I should point out that many of the great European basketball players that played in the NBA in recent past and play now have West African family roots. 

I was not being disloyal pulling for Nigeria to win, I was remembering fondly and with a modicum of pride, that I was one of the first NBA players to bring basketball to West Africa. In the Summer of 1963, Bill Russell and Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics, as part of a joint NBA and United States Information Agency (USIA) good will project, traveled to West Africa to hold basketball clinics. They worked only in the country of Senegal. The following summer, John Havelick, KC Jones, and I made the same trip to Senegal and to three additional countries: Mali, Ivory Coast and Liberia. To say basketball was in its infant stages is an understatement. Many of the young men and women we coached didn't have athletic shoes. Some played in their bare feet. Many shot the ball with two hands.The following summer I went back to West Africa with Siugo Green, point guard, of the Saint Louis Hawks, to coach again. And after I retired from the NBA in 1971, I returned for four months to West Africa in the fall of 1981, By then,  our earlier coaching lessons had taken root and many of the players were demonstrating great promise. In the 21st century, the NBA has benefited greatly from that promise.  

That was the last time I was in Africa, but I've traveled there often over the years in my memory and in my heart.  So, right on Nigeria! Right on West Africa! I'll bet you Hakeem The Dream watched tonight's game and was smiling at the outcome.

I wrote this poem for my third book of poetry, Sweat: New and Selected Poems About Sports. 

Hakeeem Olajuwon

           aka Hakeem The Dream

In Africa each morning practice starts
with warm-ups. The youngest on the team,
perhaps sixteen, always the first waiting for me,
sit in the thin shade below the backboard, 
reading the latest article about Hakeem.  
We stretch hamstrings, then slow jog
around the court. He keeps pace, all the while
talking about The Dream. "Dis donc," he says,
"With The Dream we would defeat Senegal
and be Champions of West Africa   
"Que pensez vous, entraineur?" What do I think?
I can't think about anything other than the red
and smoky sun rising over the opposite basket,
the heat already seating my shirt, and how
the rains suddenly begin half way through practice.
I shag his jump shots, the ones he says 
are like Hakeem's. He says he too will attend
the University of Houston, later play in the NBA.
"Vous m'assistez?" But his shots are ugly, too flat;
they lack the back-spin, the softness of the Dream's.
I nod my head, whatever I can do - my best shot,
I am in the country of Burkina Fasso.
Its name means Land of Up-Right people.