Jim Donaldson
The Providence Journal
November 14, 1991

What in the world, you may ask, is Bryant College doing playing Burundi in basketball?

Where in the world, you may also ask, is Burundi?

In case geography wasn't your best subject, Burundi is a small country located in eastern central Africa, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, between Tanzania and Zaire.

While Bryant versus Burundi isn't exactly a natural rivalry, it makes as much sense as PC playing Charleston Southern.

The Burundi national team is visiting Bryant tonight as part of an 11-game tour in the United States organized by the Kingston-based Institute for International Sport.

Nigeria has Hakeem Olajuwon. Zaire has Dikembe Mutombo. The Sudan has Manute Bol. And Burundi has . . . well, nobody like that yet.

But it may only be a matter of time before this tiny African nation produces a big-time, NBA-caliber player.

"We have tall guys. We have potential. What we need is someone to help us," Damas Ndikuriyo, a 27-year-old guard for the Burundi national team, said yesterday afternoon in the Bryant gym.

That someone is Craig Madzinski, who, at the age of 25, already has a resume that would impress even a Harlem Globetrotter.

A cousin of Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, Madzinski spent a year as a player-coach in Ireland, and last season served as a graduate assistant with Loyola of Chicago.

This September, Madzinski started a nine-month stint in Burundi, where, in addition to coaching the national team, he will give clinics throughout the country and establish youth leagues, hoping to build interest in the game.

Coaching basketball in Burundi already has been a learning experience for Madzinski. He's been teaching his players how to drive the lane, and they've been teaching him how to drive past hippos.

"Never get between a hippo and water," Madzinski said. "They'll run right through anything in their way to get to water."

And you thought driving in Rhode Island was hazardous . . .

Whatever culture shock Madzinski has gone through in Burundi pales in comparison to what his players have experienced in the U.S.

"What has impressed us most," said Ndikuriyo, "are the gymnasiums."

That's because there are no gyms in Burundi.

"They never played indoors before they got to the States," Madzinski said. "When we went to George Washington (University) for our first practice, it was the first time they had seen a building with a ceiling that high.

"We practice outside, on a cement court. We have wooden backboards, and no nets on the rims. If it rains, we play right through it."

That's an indication of the enthusiasm the players from Burundi have for the game. Another is that the best player, 6-foot-8 Prime (prounounced "Preem") Niyongabo, runs five miles to practice, carrying his gear in a knapsack on his back, after finishing his work as an engineer for the electric company.

"I like very much to play basketball," Niyongabo said.

The fact Burundi has been beaten by upwards of 30 points in each of their five games so far - against Coppin State, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Howard, Drexel and Delaware - hasn't demoralized them.

"This is a learning experience," Madzinski said. "They're lacking in skills, but they're willing to learn. Their game over there is to run-and-gun, up and down the court. They're lacking fundamentally."

The concept of team defense sometimes seems as foreign to them as, well, indoor courts. Because they play outside, their shooting from the perimeter is not as good as it should be. And they sometimes have as much trouble handling the ball as Matt Young does throwing to first base.

"The raw athleticism is there," said Madzinski. "We can get up and down the court. We just don't always bring the ball with us."

Soccer is the most popular game in Burundi, which gained its independence in 1962. It is a country of more than 5 million people, of whom more than 200,000 live in the capitol city, Bujumbura, which is where all of the players on the basketball team live.

There are three tribes in Burundi - the Tutsi, who tend to be tall and thin and make fine frontcourt players; the Hootoo, who are shorter and more sturdily built and fill the guard spots; and a few Twa, who are pygmies and not much help when it comes to basketball.

The native tongue is Kirundi, but the players also speak French, which is the diplomatic language of Burundi, and some also speak English. The majority of the people are Catholic, a legacy of the days of the Belgian missionaries.

In addition to Niyongabo, the engineer, and Ndikuriyo, who is a physical education teacher, there are two accountants and a bank clerk on the roster. The rest of the players, who range in height from 6-0 to 6-10, are students.

While in America, the players from Burundi have seen Magic Johnson forced into retirement because of AIDS.

"We now have many cases in Africa," Ndikuriyo said. "People must be educated about it."

They also have seen Michael Jordan work his magic on the basketball court.

"We have seen Michael Jordan, not just on TV here in America, but on tapes sent to Burundi," Ndikuriyo said. "He is extraordinary. Very fantastic. If we work hard, we hope to do things like that someday."

John Gearan
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
November 15, 1991

SMITHFIELD, R.I. - Damas Ndikuriyo admits teaching basketball at school in his native Burundi has a major difficulty. "Four hundred pupils, one ball," he explains in halting English that is fluent compared to how any American might banter in Bantu or his complex mother tongue, Kirundi.

Ndikuriyo, 27, is a physical education teacher back home in the capital city of Bujumbara. He is also a slim 6-foot-3 guard on the national team of Burundi, a tiny nation described hereabouts as "the Rhode Island of Africa." Which is not an outlandish comparison as Team Burundi worked out here before taking on Eddie Reilly's Bryant College last night. Like Rhode Island, Burundi is densely populated, predominantly Catholic and broke.

Next up is Holy Cross, which plays host to Burundi at 7:30 tonight at HC's Hart Center.

Thanks to basketball, Ndikuriyo is doing better than most in a land that subsists mostly on exporting coffee and tea while sandwiched in between the vast countries of Zaire and Tanzania.

As a University of Burundi scholarship player, he attained a degree in education and immense respect. As a member of the national team, he has become a very fortunate accidental tourist who will be competing against Holy Cross. As a teacher, well, he still has only one ball.

"It's not easy when 40 pupils come (to class) and there is only one basketball," he said. Distributing the basketball takes on a whole new meaning. Not to mention the one tilted basket sans net at the school where children are taught French and English as survival skills.

Ndikuriyo's background is not unusual there. He grew up in the countryside, in a village surrounded by hills and barely nourished by streams. His father is a "cultivator," who tills his land with a hoe to harvest food for his family of 12 and perhaps even sell some produce to earn some money.

His son followed in the footsteps of his brother Savin, who played for the national team formed after Burundi declared its independence from the Belgian Congo in 1962. His parents "didn't like basketball," he said, thinking Damas would neglect his university studies. Sound familiar?

But basketball did bring opportunities and Damas preaches to his pupils the lessons of hard work and discipline that basketball helps deliver. "Our young people must play hard to have a chance to come here," Damas remarked.

Coming to America, naturally, has all kinds of connotations in young Africans. From a two-week basketball tour like this one arranged by Worcester's own Danny Doyle, the executive director of the Institute for International Sports at the University of Rhode Island, all the way up to more regal arrivals - such as Eddie Murphy had in the movies and millionaires like Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria), Dikembe Mutombo (Nigeria) and Manute Bol (Sudan) experience in the NBA.

But these gracious national team players - including two accountants, an electric company engineer, a bank clerk, and a government worker - all work hard for their livelihood. A trip here to play ball is a lifetime bonus. Their people are very much aware of American superstars. When asked about Michael Jordan, Ndikuriyo replied, "Very fantastic," and added when Larry Bird was mentioned, "a white man - the best."

Like players everywhere, they talk about the teams they would love to defeat some day - Angola, South Africa, Central Africa and Egypt. They discuss the tragedy of Magic Johnson contracting the AIDS virus, which ravages their continent in epidemic portions. They rap about how they are improving.

"Defense is better now; driving is bad," said Ndikuriyo, referring to driving to the basket, not handling a car which only the wealthy and multinational corporations can own. These guys ride bikes and take the bus.

The team's most recently acquired asset is Craig Madzinski, an American coach on loan from the Institute where Doyle is assisted by Tim Flaherty (a city native who played ball at St. John's High, Exeter Academy and Amherst College) and Wally Halas, former Clark University and Columbia coach.

"We can get up and down the court. We just don't always bring the ball with us," quipped Madzinski, a cousin of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski and an assistant at Loyola of Chicago last season.

He said his players possess plenty of "raw athleticism," apparent as we watched 6-8 Prime (pronounced Preem) Niyongabo shoot 15-foot jumpers like a far-from-cocky Bob McAdoo. "Soccer is still the main sport. Kids there don't grow up throwing a baseball or football...so their hand-eye coordination is under-developed."

"Basketball is only 30 years old in Burundi. Even the best players have one pair of sneakers which must last them a year. My goal is to coach the coaches who barely know the basics of the game - and to plant the seeds of interest at clinics for the kids."

The Burundi players, even while getting blown out by the likes of Coppin State and Maryland-Eastern Shore, are having a terrific time touring from D.C. to Worcester. They are in awe at seeing gyms like the gleaming modern courts at Bryant. At Burundi University, their "gym" is a cement court with two hoops on rickety wooden backboards. There are no indoor gyms in the country. They have never seen such high ceilings before.

Ndikuriyo says he tells his pupils how basketball has allowed him to travel to many countries and to compete in African Games. He says the children are axiously awaiting him to return with tall stories about tall buildings in America. "But mostly I tell them over and over how much I love to play basketball.

"Of course," a cultural affairs emissary Pierre Baregeranye interjected, "the cost of a basketball could feed a family for months in our Burundi. Such money would go first to feed your children and then maybe put shoes on their feet."

Damas Ndikuriyo nodded in agreement. He appreciates how lucky he is. Just being able to share one basketball. Already, Burundi understands the concept of teamwork very well. The dribbling skills will come later. That's the easy part.