Hakeem Olajuwon

 

          Hakeem Olajuwon was a professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets.  He grew up in the African country of Nigeria . At the age of 17, he started playing basketball for his country on the Men’s National Team. As people started to hear about him, all the scouts from the U.S. came to offer him scholarships to play basketball for their college. How would you feel if you were being pressured to consider what overseas college you would want to attend?

          Hakeem was always tall like me. At first, he would always hide his height so he didn’t stand out, but when he was becoming a star because of his height, he started embracing that characteristic. Hakeem’s parents wanted him to go to college and the Nigerian school systems wanted their students to be able to go to the finest schools possible.  However, no one thought that anyone from their system would ever be pursued to go to an American college.

          Hakeem played 18 years in the NBA and is a two-time NBA champion and MVP. Hakeem played for the Houston Rockets for 17 years and the Toronto Raptors for 1 year. Since I play basketball I can understand some of the struggles he had during the season and the playoffs. Sometimes you have good games and then not-so-good games. Hakeem reminds me of the Bucks’ center, Andrew Bogut.  Bogut was the first pick in the NBA draft, as was Hakeem. Right away, Hakeem was able to demonstrate it was a good choice to pick him, but Bogut still has some work to do to prove that he is the key to success for a team to win.

          Being a very religious person, Hakeem is always praying for his team to succeed.  However, at the beginning of the 1995 playoffs, he didn’t believe that his team could beat four of the best teams in the NBA to win their second consecutive NBA championship. When his team started playing well, he had renewed faith that they could win it all.  In 1994, Hakeem was voted the NBA MVP.  Rather than accepting the award only by himself, Hakeem had his whole team accept it with him.  His reasoning for this was that he couldn’t have won that title all by himself – it was a team effort.  In my mind, I believe Hakeem Olajuwon is the ultimate team player ever.