KUW – Thank You Mom for ‘forcing’ me into basketball

KUWAIT (FIBA Asia Champions Cup) - Alpha Bangura is certainly not your quintessential professional basketballer. A conversation with the 28-year-old playing for Al Qadsia, the hosts of the 19th FIBA Asia Champions Cup reveals that the 197-cm guard is much more that.

The Sierra Leonean might have emerged as the unofficial MVP of the recently concluded Japanese league, steering Aishin Seahorses to the title en route; he might have made the All-Star 1st team and bagged the import MVP, playing for Lebanese club Al Hikmeh Sagesse, in the recently concluded Arab club championships; he might have come into the Champions Cup as the ‘hot’ property to spearhead the hosts’ campaign and might have even justified that faith with a MVP performance on his debut for Qadsia. “But playing basketball means a lot more to me than all these,” he said in a chat with S Mageshwaran of FIBA Asia.

“I must thank my mother for forcing me to take to basketball,” he started off. When he was nine-years-old, Bangura took to American football and was doing well too with dreams of making it big as a wide receiver, when his mother intervened.

“She was very worried that something would happen to me because football is such a contact sport. She was very keen I take a safer sport. That’s how I came into basketball,” he chuckled.

“Therefore credit for whatever I have achieved and will achieve in basketball should go to her. I think she is the happiest person in the world, because I play basketball. Sometimes I wonder if she is happier for me than even I am for myself,” he reminisced.

A rather quick climb up the basketball pecking order in the US, with successful showing in Eleanor Roosevelt High and St John’s college, took Bangura on a whirlwind world tour through Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Japan before landing in this part of the world.

“I’d heard so much about basketball in this region. Also it was an opportunity for me to come here because I’ve never come here before. I’m thrilled I came here,” he said.

“Basketball in this region is as solid as people had told me. Players are well developed and the overall approach is rather encouraging. All the players show enormous desire to improve. That’s a fantastic thing,” he added.

“And you can certainly expect much bigger things to happen in basketball in this region. The rate of progress is quick and it won’t be long before the leagues in this region get a larger recognition than what they are getting now.”

A man with his heart in the right place, Bangura is “very grateful” to basketball for making him what he is today.

“I’ve traveled to so many places, which I wouldn’t have dreamt of if not for basketball. Meeting so many new people, learning so much about new cultures are all things I’d treasure for the rest of my life,” he said.

“You see I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me to college. I had to, therefore, work hard to get a basketball scholarship if I had to pursue my dreams in the sport. So playing basketball has been an integral part of the learning process of life itself for me,” he went on.

“I’m glad I’ve come this far in basketball, but what matters more to me is that I’m able to help the people I love thanks to basketball,” he wrapped up before rushing off to a training session.


S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia