Born on the 11th of May 1981,Olumide Oyedeji is an Ibadan-born Nigeria-British professional basketball player who has carved a niche for himself in the world of basketball.For Olumide life as a basketballer has really paid off but it didn’t just come on a platter of Gold.According to him, the road was initially very tough and rough, before it finally became easy and straightened. For Olumide basketball started in 1995 when he gained admission into the University of Ife now Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife Nigeria,but unfortunately for him he was rejected by the school team coach for not being good enough, undeterred Olumide Oyedeji still forge ahead and went on to use his first school fees as a fresher (100level) student to get himself basketball sneakers which he eventually used to go for more personal training ,he kept working on his lapses and it paid off at the end of the day.
For Olumide’s mummy ,sports wasn’t what she wanted for him, and would do anything to dissuade and distract olumide forcefully from embracing sports, mummy and daddy were very religious and disciplined hence Olumide was expected to follow suit, whenever he got home late from training or what a view and missed assisting his mum in the kitchen, olumide would be starved for that day.
He gained admission in 1995 to study psychology and was also involved in basketball too at that time. One night after he has being rejected by the school chief coach for not showing enough quality and class, Olumide slept and dreamt that he became a basketball superstar who will travel round the world ,he woke up in the morning and told his roommates, they hated him for that and start calling him all kinds of names like ‘’Sugar coated mouth’’ and ‘’ Loud mouthed boy’’ their grouse with Olumide was that if he was very good to the extent of making it to the world stage and thus becoming a superstar he would have made the school basketball team.
Olumide didn’t allow that to get to him, he concentrated on his self-training , got a lot of basketball visuals did a lot of self-practice, all these helped sharpen his basketball career. Two years after , precisely 2007 after showing a lot of improvements, Olumide made OAU basketball team and represented the school at the Nigerian University Games (NUGA) in the same year, his impressive performance at NUGA got him a call-up to represent the Nigeria Junior basketball team in a world championship that year, players were already invited but the coach had to draft Olumide in because of his great exploits at the University games.
From that moment his basketball career began to take shape, firstly he joined Ebun comets, a Lagos-based basketball club, a year after Dynamo Moscow of Russia came calling and he started his international club career from there, he was subsequently called to feature for the Nigeria senior basketball team D’Tigers . Since that time, it has been no looking back for him as he rose to become the team captain ,moreso, he propelled the team D’Tigers to win the African basketball Games Afrobasket in 2015 defeating Angola thereby breaking a 20-year-old jinx. As a result of that wonderful feat Nigeria automatically qualified for the Olympics and thereafter became the best basketball playing nation in Africa and 11th in the world.
The 35-year-old Olumide Oyedeji has featured for many European, Asian and American club sides ; they are Ebun Comets Nigeria(1996-1997) Dynamo Moscow Russia (1997-1998) DJK Wurzburg Germany (1998-2000) Seatle Supersonics (2000-2002) Orlando Magic (2002-2003) Ilysiakos Greece (2003) Union Olympija (Slovenia) Beijing Ducks China (2004-2005) Cangrejeros Puerto Rico (2005) Seoul Thunders South Korea ( 2005-2006) Seoul Thunders (20006-2007) Granada Spain (2008) Shanxi Zhongyu china (2008-2009) Vanquerors Puerto Rico (2009) Asu Sports Club Jordan (2010) Juvecarseta Basket Italy (2010) Changwon LG Sakers South Korea(2011) Qindao China (2011 – 2012) Link Tochigi Brex Japan (2013-2013) London Lions United Kingdom (2015- till date) Thus far, Olumide Oyedeji has featured for over 20 international club sides scattered around 17 countries around the globe.
He is the only African player to have featured in all the major basketball tournaments on the global stage; Olympics, Commonwealth Games, All African games,NBA,Euro League,Asia championships and South America basketball league Afro-basket championships, he also holds the record of being the first African outside America to feature in the NBA. Apart from giving his all to basketball on the courts, he also indulges in off the court duties, he is a philanthropist and has channeled his philanthropic gesture towards helping the under-privilege. He established a foundation in 2000 known as Olumide Oyedeji foundation ,the focus of the organization is to produce scholarships to indigent and talented school primary and secondary school pupils to pursue their academic and basketball career abroad.Since the foundation started Olumide has awarded about 2,500 scholarships to youths from all over Nigeria, thereby touching about 30 cities.
Having represented Nigeria at various levels in basketball and winning laurels of different shapes and sizes for 19 years (1997-2016), he has decided to hang his basketball sneakers for Nigeria to concentrate on his club career,moreso Olumide has made it known that he will continue to support the various national basketball teams in the country by playing advisory and tutoring roles.
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