March 24, 2025

Grupomodo

Exercise makes you strong

South Africa: Helping Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Grow in SA

4 years ago Evelyn J. McDade

It was by likelihood that Ntombizile Mthombeni observed herself playing wheelchair basketball. Yet she has gone on to mentor several teams and be an ambassador for the sport in South Africa.

The yr was 2005 and Ntombizile Mthombeni was with her kid, Tshepiso, at Gelukspan Clinic in Mafikeng when she unintentionally came on a wheelchair basketball match at a close by court docket. Curious and intrigued, she questioned if she could be part of as an equipped-bodied player.

Hers was an unconventional entrance into wheelchair basketball, and that is component of the gasoline driving her not only to excel in the activity but also to assistance increase it. The sport’s open up-doorway policy meant her initially style of club-stage taking part in arrived in the Provincial Club Championship League (PCCL) when she featured for a team called Mongoose. But she primarily performed helpful games.

She was on the roster at intervals for 10 years, generally using time off to consider treatment of her child – who has cerebral palsy – and improve her baked-merchandise company. Women’s wheelchair basketball was not on the radar at the time and there was no dedicated nationwide league.

‘From player to coach’

In 2015, Mthombeni created the changeover from participant to coach. The change was ignited by an invitation to join a coaching course from a friend. She underwent the teaching for a thirty day period and, by the conclusion of that calendar year, she was hired as the assistant coach of the North West province in the Vodacom Wheelchair Basketball Challenge. There she worked along with Lydia Dumond. And, through the 2016 finals rematch in between the North West and Gauteng, she briefly filled the function of head mentor as Dumond was out of town.

Mthombeni led the group to a decisive 58-42 victory more than the defending champions to earn the championship. The victory was a substantial assurance booster and it gave her a renewed sense of function in wheelchair basketball.

“Persons never know about wheelchair basketball. They really don’t know that we exist and don’t know substantially about our activity. But we are dedicated and passionate about the activity of basketball,” states Mthombeni, now head coach of the North West Stinging Bees, four-time champions of the Nationwide Women’s Wheelchair Basketball League (NWWBL).

But that is not the only workforce she coaches. In the PCCL, Mthombeni also heads Mongoose. She presently serves as the head coach of the South African Women’s Under-25 wheelchair group as very well, and is the assistant mentor of Amawheelagirls, the senior national women’s wheelchair basketball group.

She is decided to raise the status of wheelchair basketball in her province and the nation. Her pedigree as a head mentor is amazing. She is the leader of the most productive group in the NWWBL. She also helped the Below-25 group qualify for the 2019 Women’s World Championship, generating it the third time they have competed on the intercontinental phase. And, under her, the team now ranks sixth in the globe.

Her coaching philosophy is simple: it is to encourage and practice her players challenging, be they gentlemen or females. Talking about the dissimilarities between being a player and coach, she states, “When you coach, you see basketball otherwise. You are imagining about your gamers and how they can boost on the courtroom. You are able to read the activity and have a good deal far more regulate of it. That aspect is thrilling.”

Studying from the best

She was appointed as head coach of the North West Stinging Bees in 2016. Her to start with international levels of competition as head mentor arrived with the Underneath-25 national women’s aspect that travelled to Thailand for the Wheelchair Basketball Earth Championship in 2019. There she received important knowledge, and illuminating and instructional publicity, she claims.

As a coach generally in search of to increase, she used the match as an prospect to get ideas from her peers. One coach who was especially eager to assist her was Trooper Johnson, Countrywide Wheelchair Basketball Affiliation Hall of Famer and head coach of the United States women’s national wheelchair team. He saw the prospective of the staff and mentioned they necessary sprucing in their capturing and speed.

Scott Wallace, head coach of Fantastic Britain’s Below-23 men’s group, arrived to South Africa on multiple instances and hosted camps. He has taken time to advise her on placing up follow classes and outlined areas to concentrate on to enhance her team.

“When you go out there, you meet up with other coaches and you come across out that there are so lots of things we never know. They are so significantly extra superior and I learnt so much. My crew is youthful and they are even now developing. If we develop extra, we can have a sturdy staff that can go on to play for the nationwide team,” she suggests.

The South African senior women’s crew excels on the continent and at this time ranks second in Africa guiding Algeria. They gained the 2019 Lwini Cup in Angola and gathered silver at the 2020 Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship. They have, in the earlier, skilled for worldwide tournaments like the Global Wheelchair Basketball Federation’s Americas Zone in Guatemala in 2011 and Mexico in 2013. They attained a silver inserting in both, losing to Brazil and Mexico respectively.

Mthombeni suggests in buy to qualify for the Earth Championships, South Africa was allowed to participate in the Americas Zone as “there have been no other African international locations that had women’s groups”.

Amawheelagirl failed to qualify for this year’s Paralympics in Tokyo. The group has hardly ever certified for the leading opposition, which Mthombeni states is simply because of a disparity of capabilities between South Africa and other countries. The state does not have adequate competent gamers to contend.

This can be set, she suggests, by establishing younger players. She has demonstrated her motivation to this by bringing more youthful gamers with likely into the nationwide Below-25 women’s team. She learned Emihle Mbotho, for case in point, at a college match and was impressed by her talents. Mthombeni placed her in the Under-25 lineup when she was just 16 several years outdated, creating her the youngest member on the workforce to journey to Asia.

Men’s as opposed to women’s groups

Her up coming mission is to close the hole in between women’s and men’s wheelchair basketball. The NWWBL as a focused league for ladies has served improve participation in the sport. It lets young gamers to see the accessibility and possibilities in wheelchair basketball.

For Mthombeni, the up coming move in developing the sport is in garnering much more publicity. When Mongoose went to the Junior NBA programme in 2019, numerous of the other groups and players at the function ended up unaware that wheelchair basketball existed. Even in scenarios wherever people today know of the sport, they usually are acutely aware of only men’s basketball. It is, right after all, much more seen. Men’s games are aired on SuperSport and draw in far more publicity and sponsorship.