No fewer than 250 young players turned up for the Kwese Free Tv Sports Basketball clinic on Friday at the Teslim Basketball Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
Chichi Nwoko, the General Manager for Kwese, told reporters that the company was happy to provide the platform for the youths to receive coaching techniques from former US NBA players.
Nwoko said: “We are happy to provide the platform for the participants to showcase their talents and receive some training and drilling from US-based professional basketball players for the NBA.
“We were shocked by the response we received because for long, it was opined that football was the major sports that youths will turn out for.
“We had over 500 registered participants but could not accommodate that number because of the hall and this shows that we have to plan for another clinic some other day.
“Former NBA players like Nigeria’s Olumide Oyedeji and Jerome Williams from the US were on hand to teach the youths the drills of the game, so that they can learn one or two things from their experience.”
Nwoko also said the programme was to create the awareness of the general public about Kwese Sports Tv, which brings local and international sporting contents for their entertainment.
She added: “Our audience in Lagos and the rest of Nigeria can enjoy free viewing of local and international sporting events such as the US NBA games, the English Premiership League matches and some major boxing matches.
“We believe sports should be viewed free, unlike other sporting channels, so we partner local stations like the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and have our UHF 32 station to view sporting programmes.
“On our free to air stations, we also plan to bring in the coming FIFA World Cup and also other exciting international sports events in Tennis and boxing that come up on the international scene.
“We want to use the medium to stir the passion for sports among our youths and develop participation in our local communities.
“This is why we also partnered the Nigeria Basketball Federation where we sponsored the just-concluded senior men basketball league that crowned Kano Pillars as the 2017 champions.”
In the same vein, Jerome Williams told reporters that working with Kwese Sports Tv was a great experience for him coming to Nigeria to teach youths the skills of basketball.
Williams said: “It is an awesome experience for me coming from the US to reach out to the youths, indeed the participants have shown how passionate they are in basketball.
“With what I have seen, the future is very bright for these young kids, the enthusiasm, the energy and the will to learn and adapt quickly to what they were taught is inspiring.
“Sincerely, I want to be available to teach more, however, with what I have seen them do, I believe no fewer than 15 players can reach global stardom.
“They just need constant practice and more repetition and focus on what they have learnt.”
Meanwhile, Oyedeji praised the efforts of Kwese for bringing the international stars to have close contact with the youths.
He said it will go a long way in building their understanding of the game and increase their passion for the sport.
According to him the future of the sport is very bright in Nigeria when more organizations like Kwese Sports invest in programmes like this to build future players in Nigeria.
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