Former Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri has launched “Dribble for Peace,” his latest initiative to build basketball courts in the war-torn countries of Africa. Giants of Africa
This Giant of Africa is basically a shrimp at 6-foot-5. Walk with him, walk with Masai Ujiri in the crumbling village of Koulikoro in southwestern Mali or in impoverished Agona Nsaba in Central Ghana, and he is the point guard standing among all the Manute Bols.
Walk with him there, and you’ll see all the angular wannabes or should-bes. The 7-foot-7 Manute Bol — the only player in NBA history to amass more blocks than points — was once a nobody himself. His great-grandfather, a Twic Dinka chief, was 7-foot-10, and his mother Okwok measured 6-foot-10. And if he’d never stumbled upon a basketball court, he’d have been cow herder like they wanted.
But he did somehow find a court, losing two teeth when he dunked and got his jaw tangled in the net. The rest is history.
Walk with Ujiri, and there’s always more Manutes, but not always more courts. So the former Toronto Raptors president builds them through his nonprofit organization Giants of Africa, which he founded and funded with help from Shopify entrepreneur and Hello Ventures CEO Scott Lake and Lake’s wife, Jess — along with the Kensington travel-tour company. He built 44 of them across 13 countries, under the initiative “Built Within.” But now Ujiri is doing his most dirty and philanthropic work of all: building them in places of war.
He calls this latest phase “Dribble for Peace.” The goal is to build 100 courts or more — “so kids have a safe place to play.” Walk with him there, and the climate change causes heat stroke and famine, while the violence causes stress and crossfire. But, with additional funding from Qatari-owned Forta Advisors, the 45th and 46th courts were built this March in Africa’s Sahel region, where the newest Manute Bols in Mali and Ghana bow down to Ujiri … and try to keep their teeth out of the nets.
Masai Ujiri, through his initiative “Dribble for Peace,” cuts the ribbon on a new court in the Sahel region of Africa. Giants of Africa
Walk with Ujiri in Mali and see what he saw: a man in his mid-40s, with dreadlocks, excavating dirt with his bare hands, clearing garbage, prepping the land for the construction. “You can tell he’s just putting his blood and sweat into this basketball court,” says Ujiri, a native Nigerian who also serves as a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals advocate. “And you could tell how fulfilled he was that we have come and built this.”
Hear what Ujiri hears, that this man is a “crazy rebounder” who goes by the nickname: Ben Wallace. But there are much younger wannabes and should-bes out there, like the pair of 15-year-old girls who towered over him this March at a Mali coaching clinic. Stand there with him — alongside these two 6-foot-7 girls and the 6-8 Giants of Africa co-founder and former Georgetown forward Godwin Owinje — and it validates all of Ujiri’s humanitarian work over the last quarter-century. It validates this latest project even more, this Dribble for Peace initiative, and the pixie dust that happens when a basketball court supersedes war.
Giants of Africa founder Masai Ujiri in Mali with a pair of 6-foot-7 15-year-old prospects, and Giants of Africa co-founder Godwin Owinje. Giants of Africa
Ujiri may not have told those girls last month, but he has since bought into the WNBA’s expansion Toronto Tempo — so now, maybe someday, he can bring them to North America for more than just a court. For maybe a tryout.
Walk with him in Africa — along with the Nike shoes and Nike gear he carries in and gives away — and you never know. New courts are about to be unveiled, through Dribble for Peace, in Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Senegal, eventually expanding into Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger and even Manute Bol’s South Sudan. Walk with him, and Ujiri will tell you what it’s all about:
“Build more giants.”