Veteran Nigeria basketball player, Olumide Oyedeji has narrated his ordeal before breaking through to stardom after facing a series of rejection and mockery.
The Ex NBA player narrated: Basketball was not that popular then nevertheless it was very popular in Loyola College as we had few players that played the game and were good like Patrick Omosagie (logbejo), Cyril, Apache, Damola Awosika, Momoh and few others.
“I never believed I was going to be a basketball player as I only played basketball for fun, not until I got to Obafemi Awolowo University before I saw the best of basketball. I tried to play basketball with the rest of the player, but I was not good enough at all”.
“I tried to play without shoes, the way I played when I was at Ibadan. I was told that I couldn’t play with them because I had no shoes. I went to Ibadan and used by N90 school fees to buy basketball shoes, I came back with the shoes and was asked to go and start playing with the girls on the other court that I was not good enough to play with them which was true, I CRIED OUT OF THE COURT THAT DAY AND DETERMINED THAT I WILL BE BETTER THAN ANY ONE OF THEM”, Olumide explained.
Olumide further went on to play professional basketball for 20 years before calling it to quit having represented Seattle, Orlando, and Atlanta in the NBA.
