It is a warm Tuesday (December 28) afternoon in Paynesville, a day that marks the official kickoff of the volleyball and basketball components of 2021/22 National County Sports Meet (NCSM), Liberia’s biggest sporting event.
The NCSM is organized annually between the 15 counties of Liberia with the aim of unifying the country through sports.
Facebook is hit with a with a captivating news about President George Weah from one of Liberia’s widely followed sports journalists, T Kla Wesley.
“President George Weah is currently playing for Grand Kru volleyball team against Bong County in the National County Sports Meet,” journalist Wesley wrote on his page.
The post went viral and cought the attention of thousands of Liberians giving diverse views on President Weah’s participation in the NCSM.
Henry Costa, a strong critic of President Weah wrote, “Wow! So our president is playing as part of the Grand Kru County Volleyball Team in the ongoing National County Meet? This man will never change. Is he that less busy, my people?”
President Weah, however, seems unbothered by criticism about his involvement in national sporting activities as a sitting president.
Many thought his appearance at the opening match was just a one moment exhibition to spice tournament up from the start, but that was a start of a competitive tournament for the 1995 Balloon d’Or winner and he couldn’t afford to miss a single match as long as his team Grand Kru Spartacus are in the competition (volleyball and basketball).
Of course, the president had some unfair advantages, particularly in the basketball component, but that doesn’t take away the fact that he’s good at both volleyball and basketball that he didn’t play professionally.
Only the game of football runs to the mind whenever the name George Weah is mentioned.
His performances on the court are evidence that he’s a versatile football legend. In the basketball final, President Weah scored a total of 45 points, 21 of which were scored from the three points position and provided 20 assists.
A stranger to basketball will struggle to position themselves in making a perfect shot, but that is not the case for president Weah. As the crow watched him position himself to shoot the free throws, and three points during matches, his position could tell that the president has what it takes to play the limited-contact sports.
President Weah is a long time fan of basketball. Since his active football career, he has had the enthusiasm to play the sports. He was inspired to play basketball following his many visitations to watch matches at the famous Sports Commission on Broad Street in Monrovia.
Although he became a star in Liberian football after he gained the admiration of many fans due to his performance, Weah believes that the real sporting stars are from basketball. “I was a footballer, but I had to play basketball at all cost because I wanted to be among the stars,” Pres. Weah told journalists in 2018 during the launch of the Jr. NBA program in Liberia.
Quite different from football, it takes shorter time for players to reach stardom in basketball than football.
His ambition to play basketball was overshadowed by his rapid development in the football arena that took him to Cameroon before he moved to Europe and became a global football icon. Even though the world knows him as a football icon, president Weah is also a good basketball player.
Featured Photo Credit: Kla Wesley Jr.
