As Kenyans gush over the meteoric rise of Lupita Nyong’o from the fringes to the helm of acting glory, numerous testimonials have cropped up in the press and each pretty much says the same thing. She was focused. She worked hard and followed through.
Or as someone else aptly put it, “the preparation determines the outcome”. I gleaned that quote from another exceptional young Kenyan, Daniel Odongo, who is also the first Kenyan to play professionally in the NFL. Odongo has a physical presence that is hard to ignore. He is a hulk of a man, all muscle weighing in at 270 pounds of lean mass and standing at over 6ft 5. But one would assume he is all brawn until you hear him speak. Let me just put it out there. Dennis Oliech may have his claim to fame but memorable quotes is not one of them. Odongo on the other hand makes way too much sense for a guy his age.
Daniel Odongo is celebrated in the local rugby fraternity as a top achiever. He played for Kenya’s U18-U19 sides, wore a jersey for the Kenya Harlequins juniorteam. He was the first Kenyan to play in the Super Rugby league for the Southern Kings.
He showed up for the Vodacom Blue Bulls, Natal Sharks was touted as good enough to play for South Africa’s World Cup winners, the Spring Boks. He impressed many over a short stint for New Zealand ITM Cupteam, Counties Manukau Steelers before radically switching codes and started playing NFL when he joined the Indianapolis Colts.
American football is a bizarre game, with an equally absurd set of rules, with way too many breaks during play, to accommodate advertisers pushing ads on prime time TV spots. However, it is not a game for sissies. Hardly four months in pitted against individuals who had spent their whole lives playing American football, Odongo made his debut.
In July he did not even know how to put on his pads but by December he was already game fit. Odongo first pro game in NFL landed on December 5th, the day Madiba died. When asked for his views about Madiba he said: “He galvanized and inspired us all, brought us together. He was the father of a nation. We all drew inspiration from his acts of patience and humility and forgiveness, especially.
Just the love that he exuded for everybody and what he meant to those who actually understood his struggle. It’s a loss for us all.” Any 24 year old who can articulate like that before his debut in a new sport in a pro league, deserves more air time.
Journalists are forced to readjust their mind sets when interviewing Odongo because they are used to nice sports stars who stereotypical make-little-sense during live interviews. Odongo talks about his sport from a point of his personal philosophy. So you hear words like mindset, preparation, discipline coming up often and that baffles journalists. He sounds like a sports psychologist.
As hundreds of sports people would testify, most people do not get what it takes to perform consistently at that level. It requires immense discipline and steady preparation and in a country where we never look at a short cut twice, stories like Odongo’s have to be told and retold. That more people may learn from his ethic of excellence and go back into believing that you cannot always.