Madina Okot's first basketball coach shares challenges faced in converting her from volleyball
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Reading Time: 3min | Thu. 16.04.26. | 07:26
The 21-year-old on Monday made history as she became the second Kenyan-born player to make it to the WNBA
Madina Okot’s childhood coach Phillip Onyango says he was almost "lynched" in his quest to convert the then volleyball youngster to a basketballer.
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Onyango, who is credited for spotting and recruiting a young Okot during her High School days, on Wednesday, 15 April highlighted the stern opposition he faced from the Kenyan volleyball fraternity, when his move to have her ditch the sport for basketball became apparent.
“Hell broke loose with the volleyball fraternity crying foul, saying Madina was their girl,” Onyango wrote in a Daily Nation article, referencing the moment in 2019, when he finally got Okot, a volleyball player at Bishop Sulumeti Girls Secondary School, to shift base and play basketball at Kaya Tiwi Secondary School.
“They even threatened to escalate the matter to both the Sports and Education ministries to have the girl returned to Bishop Sulumeti to continue playing volleyball,” the renowned basketball coach, who first lay his eyes on Okot during the 2018 Kenya Secondary Schools Term Two Games at Hill School in Eldoret, said.
“It took the intervention of senior volleyball coach and KVF Vice President Paul Bitok to cool the tempers and calm the matter,” he added. “He convinced the volleyball fraternity that Madina had a fair chance of succeeding in basketball as had several girls who had followed the same path.
That is the day my phone took a break from the aggrieved volleyball squad that had even vowed to lynch me.”
In his detailed piece, Onyango, who has earned the reputation of sending basketball students to American universities on scholarship, said it took him a couple of tries to initially gain the audience of the 6 foot 6 Okot, let alone pitching a plan for her to join his basketball team.
Recalling his first meeting with Okot at the Western Region games at Hill School, Onyango said: “This was basketball material, well over six feet. She was shy and reserved when I first approached her to give me her contacts so I could transfer her to Kaya Tiwi to play basketball but she flatly refused to give me an audience, of course under instructions from her school coach who had warned them not to talk to any strangers.”
As fate would have it, the two crossed paths a year later at the KSSSA Term Two Games in Kisumu, where with the help of her teammates, Onyango finally got Okot to share her parents’ contacts.
“That is when and where Madina’s journey to basketball stardom began,” Onyango wrote, noting the private meeting he had with Okot’s dad (Musa Masai), to send both Okot and her sister (Saumu Mulah) to Kaya Tiwi on scholarship.
Onyango notes that it was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that Okot transformed her basketball game, to become the star that on Monday, 13 April, made it to the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).
“When the government locked down the country to counter the virus, Madina and her Kaya Tiwi schoolmates stayed in Mombasa and continued training at the Changamwe Rollers basketball court for a whole year, going through two sessions a day, something that helped her learn the game faster,” he said.
“From knowing little about basketball, Madina had, in less than two years, become one of the best players of her generation in Kenya.”
Six years later, and she undoubtedly stands atop that list.
