Sports and Education – Fulfillment money can’t buy

Segun Odegbami

This is for all young persons aspiring to a professional sports career, examined through my own story. Enjoy it.

Two weeks ago, I received the good news that the Federal University Oye Ekiti, FUOYE, would be conferring on me an Honourary Doctorate degree in Human Kinetics during the institution’s 7th Convocation ceremony on February 11, 2023.

The reaction of all those that heard or read has been a deluge on the airwaves and on social media. I have been overwhelmed by the flood of good will messages that make me to appreciate the enormity of this completely unsolicited honour.

Who could have imagined the trajectory of my life, a little unknown ‘local’ boy from Jos metamorphosing into the ‘popular jingo’ that I have become without traversing the regular paths of accomplishment in Nigeria?

In the past few days, I have had to hold myself back from exploding with the excitement of this special ‘gift’ coming completely from the blue.

When I left Jos, a fledgling 17-year old boy, freshly minted at St. Murumba College, and landed in Ibadan to venture into the world of academics, it was with a start that was totally unrelated to any of the things that eventually became my life and story.

The only thought on my mind in 1970 was fulfilling my father’s wish to get a proper university education and to become either a lawyer, like the great Yoruba sage and political leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, or an engineer. My father’s instruction followed me like a shadow, ringing endlessly in my ears.

When football suddenly came along a few months into my sojourn in Ibadan, it was the last thought on my mind that it would shape the rest of my life. It started on the campus of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where I ended up.

I loved