Original Story Published by: Josh Needelman for The Daily Progress
Photo Source: ©Andrew Shurtleff/The Daily Progress
(Above) Virginia forward Mamadi Diakite (right) smiles during the introductions before the start of a game earlier this season.
Eyes open, the 14-year-old boy slapped his alarm clock silent. It was 5 a.m. He pulled himself out of bed, bounding into the streets of Conakry, Guinea, to run while the rest of the nation slept.
He ran because he had to. Because he needed to make up for lost time. Because if he wouldn’t, who would?
“When I was young, I was observing everything, deeply. It bothered me,” he said.
A developing nation, Guinea has languished under the grip of corrupt politicians since declaring independence from France in 1958. Conakry is Guinea’s capital, a port city known as the nation’s cultural and economic hub. It is no Washington, D.C. Traffic lights are hard to find. While foreign investors have poured resources into building infrastructure in the nation’s mountainous regions, where mostly interloper miners extract bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is derived, Conakry has been saddled by overpopulation.
And so the boy kept running, even when his breathing became labored and the miles added up. He ran through the streets he rarely trafficked in the daylight, streets stuffed with laborers scraping for work, hopeful to earn enough money to send their children to bed less hungry than the night before.
In a few years, he would earn a scholarship to play basketball at the University of Virginia. He would force himself into Coach Tony Bennett’s rotation, bringing himself to the doorstep of his goal.
But first Mamadi Diakite needed to get through mile seven, which turned into mile eight, which gave way to mile nine. His legs grew heavy. A voice in his head piped up:
I got to make it. I got to make it.
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