Hakeem Olajuwon Talks Successful NBA Career

Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing

In a recent interview, Nigerian-born NBA basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon (pictured) discusses his unlikely rise in the sport that he ultimately revolutionized.

Unlike most basketball players, Olajuwon wouldn’t begin playing the particular sport until he was 17 years old, when it was finally introduced to his school.

“I was playing team handball, soccer, so I was already an athlete. This new sports I had watched for many years,” Olajuwon says.

“In Nigeria, to get to the handball court, you had to pass through basketball.”

Shortly after, Olajuwon would play for just six months on Nigeria’s national team before receiving a University of Houston scholarship for basketball.

“I saw on my passport, ‘Basketball scholarship.’ My parents didn’t know you could get that, so it was eye-opening for them,” he says.

But Olajuwon’s favor was just beginning. In 1984, the professional basketball team the Houston Rockets would choose Olajuwon over the later iconic Michael Jordan and talented Charles Barkley.

And the rest is history.

By the time Olajuwon would retire from basketball in 2002, he would be a two-time NBA champion, achieve the distinction of being the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, score 26,946 points, receive 13,747 rebounds, perform 3,830 blocks, and win an Olympic gold medal.

Watch Olajuwon’s interview here:

Abena Agyeman-Fisher

Abena Agyeman-Fisher is the Editor-in-Chief of Face2Face Africa. Most recently, she worked for Interactive One as the Senior Editor of NewsOne, she worked for AOL as the News Programming Manager of Black Voices, which later became HuffPo Black Voices, and for the New York Times Company as an Associate Health Editor. Abena, a Spelman College graduate, has been published in Al Jazeera, the Daily Beast, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, the Grio, BlackVoices, West Orange Patch, About.com, the Source, Vibe, Vibe Vixen, Jane, and Upscale Magazines. She has interviewed top celebrities, icons, and politicians, such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, Civil Rights activist and diplomat Andrew Young, comedian Bill Cosby, Grammy Award-winning singer Jill Scott, actress and singer Queen Latifah, Olympic Gold winner Cullen Jones, international supermodel Alek Wek, and five-division world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather. Most recently, she served as the First Lady’s press reporter during President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Summit, Young African Leaders Institute event, and the 2013 presidential trip to Senegal, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Tanzania. Abena is also a 2015 International Women's Media Foundation Africa Great Lakes Fellow, where she reported on women candidates and Chinese sweatshops in Tanzania for CNN and Refinery29.