She had to keep hustling, or else she and her family would starve. Living in the village of Ako-Eko in Edo, Nigeria, Upe Atosu would sell beans on the street and hawk bales of corn, carrying a tray above her head. Day in, day out. Exhausted, Atosu would come home, clasp her hands, and belt out, “Lord give me strength! Lord give me strength! Lord give me strength!”
Upe’s mother, Bose Atosu, kept her grounded. Bose Atosu didn’t want this for her daughter — didn’t want her to sell beans and hawk bales of corn, carrying a tray above her head all her life. She wanted her daughter to have what she didn’t have: opportunity. Education mattered most. She didn’t attend college. Her daughter had to attend college.
Upe Atosu didn’t want this for herself, either. All she wanted was to please her mom. Basketball changed her plans. Once she found out about basketball at age 15, it was over —“love at first sight.”
It was more than that. It was, well, life. Exhausted, and without a nearby basketball court, Atosu would bounce a tennis ball against a wall. Atosu worked hard, and she picked up the sport quickly. The same year she fell in love with the game, in 2009, she started playing with the academy of a team in the Zenith Women’s Basketball League, the First Deepwater Club. Later in the year, the Nigerian National Team extended an invitation to represent her country.
Only when Atosu proved she could balance school and basketball did her mother allow her to play. That, and a phone call from the Nigerian National team. But once she was on Upe’s side, she was on Upe’s side.
Upe could not afford the team’s travelling expenses herself. Her mother told her, “Go.” Meanwhile, she told Upe, she would work extra hours, selling more beans and hawking more bales of corn. With her mother’s backing, Atosu felt empowered. Every game, practice, second mattered more. She wouldn’t — couldn’t — waste this opportunity. She ended up playing for the Nigerian National Team in eight tournaments, and in 2017, she finally broke through, helping the team win the Afrobasket in Mali, the country’s first victory.
She averaged 5.8 points per game in the tournament, and American colleges came calling. In 2017, she moved to the U.S. to play for Labette Community College in Kansas. In her first season there, she averaged just under 20 points per game, earning National Junior College Athletic Association First-Team All-American honours.
The 26-year-old Atosu is acutely aware that she wouldn’t have been able to achieve all of this had it not been for her mother’s sacrifice — that she would not be playing a key role in Butler’s 17-8 overall, 9-5 Big East start to the season, nor be the perimeter defensive stopper on the Big East’s best defence.
“Just having your mom in your life is motivation,” Atosu said. “Having her go through life with you, it’s just everything. It’s just everything. So I felt like when I play basketball, sometimes I might be down, in a game, maybe practice, I will feel so tired, I feel worried maybe with classes. Sometimes, when I was down, she would just encourage me. She would pray for me. And after she prayed for me, I found this inner strength in me. I no longer see challenges, I no longer see weakness around me.”
But soon, the weight of her achievements lost their value. In 2017 while Atosu was playing in the U.S., her mother passed away in Nigeria. Gone was the mother with whom she would not only hustle but with whom she would sing, dance and cook.
Life felt impossible, but Atosu pushed through. Last year, she transferred to Butler. Now, in her first season of eligibility, Atosu is averaging 6.2 points per game on 32.2 per cent from the field and 28.2 per cent from three. She realizes she is not playing up to her full potential. Still, she is trying. She is trying to become the player, the person, she once was.
It’s what her mother would have wanted.
