"When you have the will to do
something good, nothing can stop you."
[LONG READ ALERT]
Greetings. A few
days ago, Robert Seguya passed away. An icon of the game of rugby, the
42-year-old succumbed after a year-long battle with leukaemia. He will be
remembered for his long service to the game. Since 1992, he has played and
coached at school, club and national level. It is in one of his coaching roles
that the full measure of his impact has not been fully appreciated. Seguya's
coaching tenure at Hana Mixed School needs to be studied more closely for the
impact it did in the social outlook of the game.
The Game Before Seguya
Robert Seguya
began his sports journey at Namilyango. At the time of his admission, boxing
was no longer the venerated sport from the 1960s. The pugilists were disposed
to the youthful avarices of smoking, drinking and bullying the young ones. In a
few years of his admission the sport was scrapped from the College's
cocurricular offering. However, Seguya had already taken an interest in rugby.
Rugby at Namilyango was introduced in 1964. Places like Namilyango and Nsambya TTC provided a platform for native Ugandans to try their hand at the sport. The 1958 Ugandan team that played in an international against Kenya had no native Ugandan on it, despite Sepiriya Mukasa being a member of the Kampala Rugby Football Club at the time. A photo of the Kenya Schools' XV that toured Uganda in 1964 is an all-white line-up. Considering native participation in other sports, boxing in Uganda had registered two commonwealth Games medals (F. Nyangweso and T. Kawere) at the time, and there were thriving local football tournaments including the Kabaka's Cup, with the topflight league to be formed before the end of the 1960s. Rugby's race problem in Africa was not only confined to apartheid era South Africa.
The sport of rugby
peaked at the college in the 1970s, but it went on the wane in the following
decade, only being revived in the early 1990s. Interhouse fixtures were
regularly contested. In the absence of a schools' competition, Namilyango
played in the nascent Ugandan League, contesting against teams like Heathens,
KOBs, Makerere Impis and ANC.
For much of its history, rugby has been an amateur sport. The game only went professional in 1996 and this birthed the urgency to grow the game beyond its traditional hinterlands. Uganda joined the International Rugby Board (the forerunner to World Rugby) the following year, and an inter-school competition was introduced that same year. By the time Seguya left Namilyango, the Schools' Championship had been split between Namilyango and King's College, Budo.
Since the creation
of the Uganda Rugby Union, Namilyango, Budo and St. Mary's College Kisubi have
dominated the sport of rugby, both on and off the field. The institutions have
provided all past presidents of the URU, the current head of the referees'
society, the two most recent Head Coaches of the Rugby Cranes, several club
chairmen, the founders of Pirates RFC and Eagles RFC, sports columnists at both
leading papers of the country, as well as the brains behind Kratos rugby
media. Six starters of the 2007 Africa Rugby Cup final were from Namilyango,
with a further two on the bench. The position of Chairman of Uganda Schools
Rugby alternated between the rugby patrons of Namilyango, Budo and Kisubi.
Not by some conspiracy has this dominance been manufactured. It rests solely on the merit tradition and availability of resources at the institutions. Despite Namilyango being the only school with a dedicated rugby pitch, the other two schools have each converted one of their many football pitches towards rugby purposes. From their early years, as the pioneer schools in the country, the trio competed for academic supremacy and this moved into the sports arena as well.
The Typical Namilyango Rugby Player
Namilyango has
horned a reputation as "the rugby school". A good number of the
students have partaken in rugby in one way or another, despite the fact that
new students rarely have rugby experience from their previous primary schools.
It is from watching the evening training and the interschool games that they
garner their interest, and the absence of rugby balls has never deterred them.
Former Cranes flyhalf Edmond Tumusiime, who joined Namilyango in Seguya's final
year, described how he and his classmates in Form One finished "our
Quencher bottles, slopped down the pitch and used them as rugby balls."[1]
The drive in these thirteen-year-olds never goes unnoticed and the Form Three
class is tasked with teaching them the rules of the game, preparing them for
their maiden game.
At its peak, each
class boasted of a first XV and a second XV. In the early 21st century
it was tradition for the incoming Form One class to participate in their first
official rugby game against the second XV of Form Two. When they reach Form
Two, they will contest a game against the Form Three class. When one reached
Form Three, training to the Anchors was open to them and one had a chance to
prove oneself. The very ambitious would begin Anchors' training while still in
Form Two.
Playing for the
Anchors is the ultimate honour of a school rugby player in Uganda. Every team
wants to beat them – so often falling short. Partly due to the exploits of the
likes of Seguya, Tumusiime did the Anchors build their winning reputation. The
efforts of the rugby patrons at the College, Monsieur Valence Bizimana and Mr.
Kakembo as well as the coaching staff played a role.
Upon leaving
Namilyango, these students – those who opted to continue with the game – would
play for one of three teams. Namilyango has been a feeder for Kampala Old Boys
(KOBs) since the advent of the Schools' Championship, with majority of
Namilyango alumni playing for KOBS and its understudy side, Boks. The third
club that alumni have significantly played for is Makerere Impis, especially
those that secured government scholarships to study at the University. The
pattern of the Namilyango rugby player was to have their peak in their mid to
late twenties while playing club rugby or for the national team, after which
the reality of advancing their career at their daytime job took precedence over
rugby. Tumusiime has admitted to not reaching his peak due to "mixing
rugby with school and my professional career."
It is
understandable why they would opt to grow their daytime jobs. The sports
budgets in the country are dismal, and the crowds are few which hinders the
growth of the professional game.
In contrast to
this Namilyango pattern, Seguya's club rugby career was spent at Nile RFC
(present day Jinja Hippos), Heathens RFC and Buffaloes RFC, playing club rugby
for more than 15 seasons. He pursued entrepreneurship and private business,
rather than a daytime job. And to commence his coaching career, he opted for
Hana Mixed School, with no rugby history – or sports history for that matter.
Hana's Hegemony
As Namilyango
celebrated its centennial year, Hana Mixed School was still in its first year
of operation. Football was the main sports program offered at the new school.
The school decided to switch their attention towards rugby. The Games Master
formulated an agreement with Robert Seguya. Seguya focused on fitness, and he
enlisted Lady Cranes' Christine Kizito to handle the fitness and conditioning
of the team. Initially, the school struggled to gain promotion to the Premier
Schools division, losing to Comboni College (2007) and Lango College (2008).
To build the
program to his desired level, Seguya played a bigger role in the recruitment of
players to Hana. Aware of youths from Naguru who had trained with Heathens
junior sides, Seguya proposed the establishment of a scholarship program at
Hana. Four of the first five beneficiaries of this scheme were Naguru-bred
youths, including Alfred Bijik, Philip Wokorach, Kevin Keremundu and Ronnie
Musoke. In 2010[MK1] , Hana's first year in the Schools' League,
Seguya's team lost at the semi-final stage to eventual winners Budo. In
October, at the annual Independence 7s tournament, Hana triumphed over
Namilyango in the final. The following season, Hana lifted the Schools' League,
becoming the second school outside the ancient trio to be crowned school
champions (after Kyambogo in 2003). Hana swept all school rugby trophies on the
domestic scene, and in August that year they were crowned East Africa
champions.
Seguya's blueprint
at Hana proved that the Big Three of schools' rugby could be trounced. Kololo
SS adopted this system, establishing bursaries for Naguru-based teenagers.
Between 2011 and 2015, the Schools' League title went to Hana on three
occasions, Kololo took the 2014 title, with SMACK the only one of the Big Three
to secure a championship (2015). The 2014 final was the first time in Schools
League history that neither Namilyango, SMACK nor Budo played in the final.
Some sections of the media and fans interpreted this as a shift in the balance
of power.
Back to Normal Service
The Hana-Kololo
hegemony didn’t last long. After 2016, Hana Mixed School reversed its
scholarship policy, in a move that saw the school move away from the UNEB
system towards the costlier International Baccalaureate curriculum. And with
these changes, the rugby scholarship program ceased. Even in the absence of
scholarships, five years had proven to be a short time to establish the kind of
culture that prompts a thirteen-year-old to cultivate his rugby skills with an
empty Quencher bottle. In 2016,
normal service resumed as Namilyango won the first of three Schools' League
titles, only to be stopped by SMACK in 2019.
The game of rugby
expanded to more schools, but they were more of the ilk of
Namilyango-SMACK-Budo. Rugby programs were started at Mbarara High School and
Ntare School, and the Makerere College School rugby program was revived.
In the years that
followed, Seguya completed his World Rugby coaching certificate (Level 3), and
returned to Heathens RFC as Head Coach, leading them to the Uganda Cup. He
later took up coaching roles at Jinja Hippos and the Rugby Cranes (first as
assistant, then as Head Coach).
Having learnt the
game he loved through the merit-based system of Namilyango, Seguya believed in
competition. And he believed competition was essential to growing the game of
rugby. Rather than the norm of going back to Namilyango and helping coach the
Anchors, he sought to provide better competition to the Big Three schools. He
helped show the rest of the rugby fraternity that anyone could rise to the top
if they got an opportunity to prove themselves. As a lasting testament to him,
the greatest rugby player of the current generation might end up being a kid
from Naguru who spent his school days at Hana.
Ceteris. Paribus.
References
Bugembe, D., (27th December 2014), “I was constantly insulted by fans when I quit – Edu,” in The Daily Monitor.
Campbell, M. and Cohen, E.J. (1960) Rugby
Football in East Africa, 1909–1959. Published by the Rugby Football Union
of East Africa
Collins, T. (2009). "Chapter 1: The Schoolboy's Game," A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge.
Collins, T. (2009). "Chapter 7: The Imperial Game," A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge.
Kigongo, Ismail
D., (26th May 2021). "Seguya: Uganda's best ever rugger," The
Daily Monitor.
Muziransa, M., (03rd
June 2016). "Battle-hardened Seguya mellows in
search of rugby stars' affection," The Daily Monitor.
[1] Deus
Bugembe (27th December 2014), “I was constantly insulted by fans when I quit –
Edu,” in The Daily Monitor
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