GOA\u2019s AfriCAN event in Toronto<\/a>. \u201cWhen we come together and support one another, we can make a real impact.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nHosting the first ever Giants of Africa Alumni Reunion, which took place in Las Vegas last month during the 2024 NBA Summer League, GOA was able to bring together former campers and clinic participants to not only set the stage for future initiatives but also to communicate to a younger generation the power and opportunity behind playing basketball. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur dream was just to make sure that kids coming after us didn’t go through what we went through as international students. We wanted to provide an avenue where the transition will be smoother than what we went through,\u201d said GOA co-founder and former Georgetown Hoyas basketball player Godwin Owinje. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Owinje, a current NBA and international scout for the Brooklyn Nets, is living proof that having the heart to follow your passions can lead to a higher calling. Coming from a small neighborhood in the Delta State of Nigeria, where most kids don’t normally go to college or even finish high school, and where soccer runs rampantly along the streets, the 6-8 Owinje had to learn what basketball was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe reason I [tell] [my] story is because if someone like me can make it out of the neighborhood that I came out of, anybody can do it,\u201d said Owinje. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Owinje has an undying love for his college team and shouts \u201cHoyas for Life!\u201d his heart truly lies with the kids whose smiles radiate ever so brightly in the midst of doing what they love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe hammer home, whenever we’re talking to these kids, that if you dream, own that dream and do everything you can, do everything possible to achieve that goal you set for yourself of what you want to become,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ndeye Fatou Beye, a GOA alum (2018) and current basketball scout in Senegal, is one of the many people Owinje and Ujiri have reached with the program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[The program] is opening your eyes to not only say like, \u2018I’m a young girl, I’m a Black woman, I’m African, I can’t achieve any goals.\u2019 It made me open my eyes, to be able to say, you know what, I can be whoever I wanna be if I believe in myself. And Masai was always there to tell us it’s not because you’re from Africa; you can be who you wanna be in the future, and that’s really impacted my life. And yeah, \u2019til that day, I have the same mentality to always believe in myself no matter what and no matter where I am right now,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Using basketball as a stepping stone to achieve her goals, Beye utilized the confidence she learned at the camp and the lesson of \u201chow to be in a society dominated by men and in the sport industry\u201d to help foster BAL4HER, a program dedicated to advancing gender equality and women\u2019s leadership while encouraging young women and girls to invest in themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as an alum, Beye is excited to make a similar impact. \u201cAnd I think right now I want to be more impactful in the life of young women right now because that will make the difference,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing firm as the epitome of what it means to \u201cdream big,\u201d Tolulope Omogbehin, known widely as \u201cOmos,\u201d credits his rise in the WWE world not only to his impressive 7-3 stature but also to the lessons he learned as a young adult in the GOA camps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI remember the first time we went to the camp, Masai said use basketball as a tool to get to where you want to get to in life,\u201d Omos recalls. \u201cAnd as a young person, I never truly understood what that meant.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until being in the WWE for the past five years and doing that, and all the training from basketball, the perseverance, the teamwork\u2014all those things have helped me become professional in what I\u2019m doing today,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a height one would call \u201c NBA perfect,\u201d it\u2019s expected of someone like Omos to simply take basketball and run with it. However, for him, using basketball as a tool to take the nontraditional route opened up a sea of possibilities that set him apart from the rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And his success is a testament to that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018Dream big\u2019 is like not having a cap on the possibilities of your life, right? I think for me, I’ve always had an imaginative mind, and I think GOA kind of helped and expanded that and like, while you might think this might be the end for you, you can dream before that, because you never know where you’re gonna land,\u201d Omos adds. \u201cIt can always be a dream, you can always dream.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\nAs GOA continues to expand to more countries, build more courts and push more initiatives to foster growth in the African diaspora, GOA alumni like Omos and Beye continue to inspire, expanding the minds of the next generation of basketball players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLike I told them in the alumni reunion the other day, it doesn’t matter how big or small you affect another kid, another person’s life or another youth in Africa\u2019s life, it means the whole world to that person, just like it meant the whole world when we did it to you,\u201d Owinje says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only are the alumni affecting the very lives of the youth, they\u2019re also living, breathing, testaments to the importance of never letting go of a dream, no matter where you\u2019re from, and no matter how out of reach it may seem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Portraits via Giants of Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a little kid, dreaming big was natural. It came easily, like breathing air. Some of us dreamt about being astronauts. Others, superstars. And perhaps even a few presidents here and there. But as we got older, dreaming big felt less and less practical\u2014almost like a nuisance to our day-to-day lives. However, for over 6,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":537,"featured_media":814330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-parts\/blog-template-no-ads.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[7557,65067,13011,5242],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-814326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-africa","tag-giants-of-africa","tag-international","tag-masai-ujiri"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814326"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814370,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814326\/revisions\/814370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814326"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=814326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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