Sam Obol had pretty much done it all on the court.
The Ugandan basketball player had honed his skills into team MVP honors at the university level and a spot on the national team’s roster, the highest basketball achievement his country had to offer.
But it still wasn’t enough.
“Having played basketball, it’s not about being on top,” Obol said.
“You need to teach the young ones. It’s about teaching.”
So Obol took another path; one that has taken him from coaching kids in Uganda to volunteering in basketball-coaching clinics there and finally to Westwood, as part of the Ugandan Delegation that visited UCLA on Monday.
Obol and three other basketball coaches from Uganda – Albert Aciko, Janet Nakkazi and Sylvia Twesigye – traveled to UCLA as part of the International Sport Connection Basketball Tour to learn more about John Wooden and his teaching philosophies.
Texas Tech professor Jens Omli, who founded the ISC and organized the tour, has implemented Wooden’s principles and his Pyramid of Success into training coaches, including these four coaches.
Through the number of coaches they have trained, the ICS has impacted the lives of an estimated 265,000 children in Uganda in the past four years.
But to Aciko, these clinics produce more than just coaches, they “teach life skills that transcend basketball.”
According to Omli, the clinics are trying to emphasize the Pyramid of Success. Halfway across the globe, Kyambadde Stone, a soccer coach in Uganda, has embraced this concept.
Twice a week after warm-ups, he gathers his kids into a circle and hands them each a card that more often than not, has the name of a block on the Pyramid of Success.
They then scatter into groups to discuss the topic. When they return, one kid from each group shares that group’s thoughts, and then Kyambadde himself will explain that specific part of the pyramid.
“There’s a saying about Uganda, ‘We are always hungry,’” Obol said. “And that’s true, we are always hungry for knowledge.”
While basketball plays second fiddle to soccer in Uganda, its popularity is gaining steam, and these coaches, along with a growing number of others, are using that to their advantage to set the foundation for a brighter future.
Uganda, torn apart from civil conflict from 1986 to 2006, is still recovering from that trauma, and what this new generation does may largely determine its future.
Through basketball, the coaches said they have kept kids in school, and that without it, those kids would have dropped out.
As the sport grows, it also gives options for more kids to play for universities, even if it’s not through a scholarship. But some of Obol’s players have received scholarships to play for schools in India.
“Basketball is opening doors for families to have a better future and education,” Nakkazi said.
Pam Walker, director of operations for UCLA women’s basketball, who visited Uganda on a volunteer trip in 2010 to conduct a basketball clinic for kids, has noticed how much the sport has grown since her visit.
“What I found (out) … is how much has changed in the last three years. Really, basketball was not well known (in Uganda),” Walker said. “It was just a challenge to get kids to not kick the ball and use the ball in a different way.”
On Monday, the Ugandan delegation watched a video replay of Wooden speaking to a sports psychology class in 2001 taught by UCLA professor, Tara Scanlan, about the Pyramid of Success.
They sat transfixed, soaking up Wooden’s knowledge. Afterward, their appreciation for Wooden seemed to have grown even more.
Twesigye had already begun adjusting one of her longstanding principles.
“I love winning, I really do. I’ll do anything (to win). … And that is how bad I pushed my team,” she said.
“(Now), I realize I was putting so much in my head. I look at myself as a better coach when I go back home. And I know they are going to love to win without being told.”
As their return to Uganda nears, these coaches are excited to not only apply what they have learned here at UCLA, but spread that knowledge to others.
“From what I have learned about Coach Wooden … I’m going to make it a part of my training when I go back to Uganda,” Aciko said.
“I’m going to try to get everybody in Uganda to understand it as well, because I think it’s the future for us.”