Old Boy Andile Akeru Fihla Shoots for the Stars

We extend our congratulations to Andile Akeru Fihla (class of 2021) on being selected as part of the Temple University Men's Basketball team, in Philadelphia, U.S.A.

Andile (AK) was the 2021 Basketball captain for St David's Marist Inanda. Unfortunately,  the COVID-19 pandemic prevented him and his team from fully representing the school and competing against other teams. Despite this, Andile was undeterred and continued his training - working hard and aiming high. Coach and Director of Basketball, Elvis Ukpong, describes Andile as truly dedicated to his craft, an attribute he has only seen a handful of times in his many years of coaching young athletes. Ukpong further shares that Andile's work ethic fully matched his level of ambition, and his pursuit of excellence in the sport of Basketball was relentless.

Andile matriculated from St David's with 2 distinctions, and moved to the United States of America to further his studies and Basketball training. This move and dedication to his sport has paid off, as he has now been selected to be on the Temple University Men’s Basketball team, located in Philadelphia. He is the only South African selected, but joins two fellow Africans from South Sudan and Nigeria. 

Temple University is classified as a Division One (D1) school. At the collegiate level, universities, colleges and schools for further training, are organised into three divisions in order to create parity and a more level playing field in intercollegiate sports. Divisions are based on the size of the institution, the level of competition, and the funding of sports programmes. As a D1 school, the Temple University Basketball programme follows strict and highly competitive recruiting guidelines, with many of their players going on to play Basketball professionally. 

Being selected for this team is a major achievement - not only for Andile personally, but for the country of South Africa. It is not often that South African Basketball players are able to join bigger teams in the U.S.A., and play at a premier level in the country that is viewed as the global leader in Basketball. At the prize-giving of the recent 2022 Inanda Hoops Challenge, Mr Raphael Edwards mentioned in his remark that “only one percent make it this far” in the sport and we are extremely proud of this great achievement by Andile for being that 1%. We know that his achievement will encourage many of our boys to dream even bigger and aim even higher- just as Andile Akeru Fihla did!