I wouldn’t consider myself an
athlete. When I was younger, I used to
be somewhat athletic; I took lawn tennis lessons when I was 8, and then again
in senior high when I wanted to worm my way out of taking the mandatory physical
education class. I was also a part of a
hiking program in my community from the age of 10 to 18, but let’s be honest –
hiking isn’t really a sport (it’s just walking with a fancy name). Lastly, and probably most importantly, I
played football (which my country has decided to rename “soccer” for some
strange reason) from age 8 to 16, finally dropping out because my team decided
to get serious about competing, and I just wasn’t into that. So, as I entered into university, I left the
world of sports for good and focused my time and energy on school and my other
hobbies, most of which took place indoors and could in no way be called
exercise. I remained like this for three
years at my university, and I would have continued to be athletic-less for many
more years to come if it had not been for my decision to come to University of
Ghana and two very persistent ladies with vision and style that I met
here.
A
few weeks into my first semester at UG, a knock at my door revealed the Volta
Hall Sports Representatives who had come by to welcome my roommate and I to
Ghana with just a single question: “What sport will you play?”
We
both stared at them in confusion. “What
sport will we play?” I asked them,
unsure of just what they meant. I hadn’t
signed up for any team, and having barley adjusted to the weather in Ghana,
joining a social group that involved any type of physical exertion was the last
thing on my mind. But they were at my
door, and they didn’t seem interested in leaving until they had placed my roommate
and I on a team to represent Volta Hall during the inter-hall games. After going through all of our options, my
roommate decided to try something completely new, handball, and I decided to
stick to something familiar, football.
When we learned of the 5 a.m. wake up training would require, we tried
to prolong our starting date as long as possible, but eventually we received
another knock early one Monday morning from our friendly sports reps, and off
we went, escorted all the way, to our respective sports.
As
it turns out, my first day of Volta Hall football training wasn’t just Volta
Hall. Unknown to me or my sports rep,
the university was training the official UG women’s football team that morning,
bringing together the best players from the entire school. Instead of turning me away like I thought
they would (I wasn’t part of the school team after all), my reintroduction to
the world of football was an hour and a half of panting and sweating trying
keep up with the girls who had been doing this for years. By the time I got back to my room, I was
determined to quit. The Volta sports
reps had assured me that inter-hall games were fun and non-competitive, and
after years of decided laziness, the training I had gone to meet was nothing
close to what I had been expecting. Yet,
despite my resolve to sleep in the next day, I was somehow persuaded to get out
of bed and back onto the field before the sun was even up.
The
second day proved harder than the first, with even more panting and sweating, but
I pushed through and – after Wednesday off for a bit of recovery – I found
myself willingly going back to the field for the rest of the week. Lucky for me, the rest of the week was given
over to inter-halls, and I finally found the fun and friendly team I had been
hoping for. Though I did eventually end
up training with the school-wide team as they prepared for bilateral games in
Nigeria, and later actually played as the first goal keeper for UG in the 2013
Mini-GUSA games in Tamale, I wouldn’t have made it past that first week of
training if not for the Volta girls I met on the field as my teammates. For it was these girls who became more than
just a team to me as we played – they became the friends who made me feel like
I had a place here in Ghana, made me feel like I belonged. Far away from home, they became my family.
Still,
no matter how at home I felt on the field, as an international student, I knew
that eventually my time would come to board the plane back to the United States
where my family, friends, school, job, and the rest of my life were on hold
waiting for me. But the longer I stayed
in Ghana, the more I felt that five months here just wasn’t enough. And the more I became a part of the sports
scene at UG, the more I felt that leaving after one semester would mean missing
out on events I had secretly started to look forward to, such as Mini-GUSA and
the bilateral games in Ghana. Being a
part of the Volta Hall football team had helped me find my place at UG, but it
was training with the school team in preparation for Nigeria that finally
pushed me to extend my stay from one semester to two. Not only did I have a family at Volta Hall,
but now, I also had a family of footballers and the other sports students
spread across campus that I had met on the field and through shared meals at
Central Cuisine. My family was expanding
and there was no way I could leave them so soon. Athlete or not, my coach and team encouraged
my progress on the field, and with their support, I saw myself actually improve
at something I had given up long ago.
And the more I improved, the more I dedicated myself to training even
harder, thoughts of playing in Tamale and the second bilateral games pushing my
body through football and stamina exercises I never thought physically
possible. I may not have been selected
to participate in the game in Nigeria, but now that I was staying for second
semester, I was determined to be good enough to represent UG in front of the
rest of Ghana’s universities at Mini-GUSA in Tamale.
And
as it turns out, I was. Although I had
spent more and more time on the bench during my final years of football in the
US, I was selected as the first goalkeeper for UG. And so, after four weeks of intensive
training twice a day, six days a week, I found myself in Tamale with over sixty
athletes selected to compete for UG in an experience that I’ll never forget
with friends I will always remember.
After ten days of non-stop sports, we returned to Accra exhausted but
proudly holding silver in the hands of the female footballers just in time to
meet the Nigerians coming for a rematch in the second bilateral games of the
year. As this game only called for eight
players, I was sad to see most of my teammates disappear from training. But as I settled into the goal in what was
probably the last professional game of football I will ever play in my life, I
found myself surrounded by a sea of familiar faces. obruni wandering around the vast UG campus desperately trying to
make friends so I felt less lonely leaving my entire life thousands of miles
behind. And now, as my fateful departure
date creeps ever closer, I know I will leave Ghana with a whole community I can
call my own. Being a part of UG sports
has been the aspect of my experience
here in Ghana that has made it truly life changing, because on the field I
stopped being just another obruni. On the field, I became a goalkeeper, a
player, a teammate. On the field, the
goal was mine, the field was ours, and the glory we won is eternal.
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