LET’S CHANGE OUR MINDSET – MAPHANGA

If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.’

These immortal words uttered by Apple founder Steve Jobs, one of the technology industry’s most influential figures, who died after a battle with cancer, at 56, in 2011, would best describe Eswatini National Basketball Association President, Nhlanhla Maphanga. Maphanga is head-honcho of a sport that one-time was the third biggest sport after soccer and athletics in the country in the late 1990s at a time when it struggled to get any sponsorships and was played mainly along the Mbabane-Manzini corridor with the UNESWA Multi-Purpose Hall being the main venue. While the sport was being played in some parts of the country especially in the sugar-belt areas, it was dominated by teams in the Mbabane-Manzini corridor with Sonics, Jazz, Mbabane Knicks, Vikings, Cypress Hill among the most popular teams. 

Now, Maphanga, a former goal-minder for hub sides, Manzini Wanderers and Denver Sundowns, heads an Executive Committee which is committed to bringing back the good times in the sport which became popular with its 3-on-3 tournaments at the Mbabane New Mall sponsored by Sprite. It now has the full backing of giant Mobile Telecommunications Company, MTN Eswatini. Say your say ‘Kid’. “My personal goal is to have all clubs capacitated administratively, have FIBA accredited referees and officials, and to finally have a pool of high performance coaches. I also hope player development programmes will be run concurrently.” That’s his vision and organisation’s short-term and long-term goals. But most importantly, Maphanga believes as a country we need to change our mindset and realise sport is not pleasure or leisure but can be a career now.

“Kobe Bryant was chased away from training even after games. Tiger Woods, if you watch the documentary at the age of three years hit so many golf balls in a day. We are way behind. We need to have our children take at least two sports and do well in those sports,” he adds. Ladies and gentlemen, Maphanga now also a member of the Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association, which he believes will work well for basketball, is on the Chairman’s Chair today and enjoy your reading.

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