Masai Ujiri is not ready to talk about his heritage.
“No legacy yet man, we haven’t done anything yet,” he says as he steps off the red carpet at his nonprofit’s 9th annual “The Giant of Africa” gala, where hundreds of people among the most influential in North America came together to celebrate the life of Ujiri’s idol, Nelson Mandela, and to learn more about the association’s goals and initiatives.
The vice-president and president of the Toronto Raptors and co-founder of Giants of Africa does not like to focus on the present. He always thinks of the future, primarily a future that has used sport – especially basketball – to improve the lives of young Africans and unite disparate groups of people all over the world.
“Masai always sees things before they happen,” says Godwin Owinje, co-founder of Giants of Africa and Ujiri’s childhood friend. “Even when we were younger, he always aspired to do things like that.”
“This” being the massive event held at HISTORY in Toronto, where hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through space – money that Ujiri surely hopes will be invested in his philanthropic work in Africa. But “it” also refers to the work itself, including Giants of Africa’s latest and boldest move, the “Built Within” initiative, to build 100 new basketball courts across the African continent. In just over a year since the initiative was announced, Giants of Africa has already built 25 courts in nine different countries.
“Yeah, it’s [a] good [accomplishment]”, Ujiri told Yahoo Sports Canada. “Sometimes we really try to set an example so that when people see you can do it, people do it – people come too and build more.
“But we need infrastructure in Africa. We must continue to grow. These young people need the chance to play somewhere. And that’s why it means a lot to us.
The idea for the 100 courts was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Giants of Africa was unable to run the camps they used to run for boys and girls across the country. Africa. Instead, they diverted their resources to building physical infrastructure in the form of courts.
“Building these courts is very, very important to us because it gets children off the streets,” says Owinje, who himself was homeless for a time in Nigeria before Ujiri and his family took him in. . “The places where we build these courts are very strategic. They are in communities that need them. So it can get kids off the streets to try to make something of themselves.
Each court unveiling is accompanied by a ceremony. Giants of Africa coaches and special guests, including musicians and former NBA players, come together with hundreds of children from the community to celebrate the occasion, singing, dancing and participating in a mini basketball camp. Players are drilled by NBA players and coaches for a day before concluding, at which point they realize it’s all – the court, the basketballs, the shoes, the equipment – is for them ; trainers leave, but the rest stays there for them to use indefinitely.
“It’s like growing up in the West, it’s like having a basketball court on Christmas morning,” says Patrick Engelbrecht, director of international scouting for the Toronto Raptors and African Giants coach. . “The whole neighborhood is going to play on it, you know it’s yours, it’s going to be there – it’s just that feeling that the community will be able to come together, use it, play it and change the lives of so many young people.”
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Raptors rookie Christian Koloko didn’t play basketball in a real gym until he moved to the United States at age 17. that it cost money to play in a good gym growing up, “so it was really difficult.”
Like many kids growing up in Africa, Koloko only got his start in basketball as a fluke. In high school, one of her three sisters started attending a month-long paid basketball academy at her school. But after just one day of training, she was so tired that she decided she would never go back.
So Koloko, being the opportunistic young man that he was – playing basketball for fun at the time but never in a structured environment – took his place in camp for the rest of the month. He fall in love.
“The following month, I asked my mother and my mother started paying,” Koloko recalls. “And that’s how I started playing basketball.
“Basketball has the power to do a lot of things for people, for kids,” says Koloko, himself being an example. “So I think just getting them off the streets, learning to live with other people, and I think just doing that is going to help a lot of people back home.”
Koloko is an example of someone whose life was transformed by basketball in a very literal way, going from his sister’s academy to an invitation from Basketball Without Borders to a prep school in the United States and ultimately to to be the 33rd overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. But there are countless others who have used the life skills and opportunities they learned from basketball – camaraderie, leadership, teamwork, communication, discipline and, in some cases, the ability to move to the United States – and steered them towards other projects.
Take Tolulope Omogbehin, aka WWE professional wrestler “Omos”, for example. Omos snuck into a Giants of Africa camp in his hometown of Lagos, Nigeria, aged 14, having to convince Ujiri and other GOA leaders to let him participate because he was measuring up 6 feet 7 inches and that he was the youngest in the camp. Omos excelled, moving to the United States to attend prep school and then playing college basketball at the University of South Florida, an opportunity he never would have had had it not been for the African Giants and basketball. -ball.
“Basketball changed my life,” Omos said on stage at the Gala.
Now Ujiri and Giants of Africa hope it will continue to change the lives of many more young Africans in the years to come.
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The scale of building 100 new basketball courts in at least nine different African countries is enormous. But for Ujiri and Giants of Africa, it’s just the beginning.
“We must continue. We can’t stop at these small numbers,” Ujiri says with a smile.
But when Ujiri talks about improving the “infrastructure” of basketball in Africa, he’s not just talking about physical spaces. It also alludes to the ecosystem that empowers people to use basketball to change their lives, communities, cultures and countries.
Think about it: in the West, we have prep leagues, high schools, junior colleges, the AAU, NCAA, U Sports, NBA, WNBA, and CEBL — not to mention a whole media ecosystem surrounding it. . This massive basketball economy not only helps players by providing clear direction on how to progress, but it also provides jobs for thousands of coaches, coaches and executives across the North American continent. .
“Basic infrastructure is what comes first, right?” said Engelbrecht. “You build the basic infrastructure first, start getting people excited about the game, excited to play and remember it. Excited to coach, excited to teach the game… You have to have places where people people can hone that talent and they can seek to raise young players and teach them the game.”
But with the largest population of young people in the world, it is very complicated. While there are specific hotspots in Africa catching up, including a high-end basketball facility in Senegal and two in Egypt, the continent as a whole is lagging far behind. And that is why the goal of building 100 courts is not just about the courts themselves; it’s also about setting an example for local governments and businesses to follow in their footsteps by investing in more high-end basketball courts, gymnasiums and facilities, which will ultimately lead to more camps, academies and leagues that will create jobs for locals.
The Basketball Africa League (BAL) is a start. Founded in 2019, the 12-team league is a joint venture between the NBA and FIBA to help grow the game in Africa and provide a paid platform for professional athletes. Already, players like Egyptian Zamalek center Anas Mahmoud have moved from BAL to the NBA, and with the new BAL Elevate program that places a young NBA Academy Africa player on each of the 12 teams, the league is starting to evolve in a younger world. direction. Soon, the hope is that the BAL will create a minor youth league or developmental league (similar to the NBA G League) to play under the 12 BAL teams, providing elite youth across the continent with an environment structured to play and develop their games.
“I’m proud of what the NBA is doing, you know, building a Basketball Africa League that has become amazing and that we all identify with. It’s huge for us,” says Ujiri. “It’s going to start. Little by little , you are starting to grow, aren’t you? You are building courts. Now you have facilities. Now you have a league, camps, clinics, coaches are getting better, more and more people know more about basketball and [about] talent on the continent. We have players who play in the NBA [that] shine and try to do more and better…
“We have to keep building, keep growing. Because it will affect young people and make our young people bigger and better; give them opportunities to play at a younger age.
Ujiri is not ready to talk about inheritance. But the work speaks for itself.
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