Kanyane pg 1 9-12-19
- Details
- Category: Current Issue
caption, page 2:
Mbongeni Kanyane. Photo by Steve Nalbandian
Kanyane's
'got it'
As far as first impressions go, this one is pretty impressive.
Think of a positive way to describe a person, and someone at Putnam Science Academy has likely used that same way to describe Mbongeni Kanyane in the first week of school. Humble, respectful, sincere, old soul, gets it, genuine, funny. They just roll off the tongue of teachers, staff and students.
“He’s just such a nice kid,” Athletic Director Tom Espinosa said. “He’s got ‘it’.”
But people also use terms like ferocious competitor, cold-blooded, and driven to describe the soon-to-be 18-year-old native of Johannesburg, South Africa.
“He just wants to beat you every time,” said teammate and fellow countryman Jermaine Mentoor. “And he usually does.”
Geni, as he’s known around school, is one of many talented players on the boys’ First Team soccer roster. The Mustangs open their regular season Sept. 11 at Williston, looking to improve upon last year’s success that included a national ranking as high as No. 8. This year, in just their second season, they have designs on a national championship. If that is to happen, Kanyane will play a leading role.
“When you look at him physically, he has the tools to succeed at a high level,” coach Sam DeMello said of Kanyane. Kanyane packs a solid 166 pounds onto his 5-foot, 8-inch frame. “He has a cannon of a left foot. So from a physical standpoint, he has all the tools.
“And then from the other side of it, he has a high understanding of the game. His ability to interpret space, to find the ball — all of those things — he’s at a very, very high level. Mentally, technically, he’s all there.”
Kanyane was introduced to soccer at age 10, when he went to train with the soccer club of his older brother, Mbongani. There was no awe-inspiring thing where Kanyane just wowed everybody and was clearly some whiz kid, making all the older boys look silly. Eventually, he fell back into playing against his own age group. “I was not better than any of the older players, no,” he laughed. There is no divine intervention here.
“I believe it’s hard work, I honestly do,” he said. “Even back at home there are a lot of players I come across who are very good. They’re talented, but they don’t push themselves as much as they could, and that’s why they fall short. That’s what I think. It comes with work.”
It also comes with discipline, which came from his father, Mbuso, though he wasn’t an overbearing, iron-fisted disciplinarian. In fact, “he’s not strict at all,” Kanyane said. “But there’s just something about him; he’s so nice to you that when you get on his bad side, you feel bad. You never want to disappoint him. You get that bad feeling when you disappoint him. He’s never mad at me, but when he’s disappointed … ugh. Disappointing him is the worst thing.
“My father gave me a lot of leeway to do things. You know how when you haven’t had a taste of something, you want it more? While I was at home, my dad actually gave me the taste. He gave me those freedoms, so I never needed or wanted to do something behind his back. My parents trusted me to make the correct decisions. I respected that and I never wanted to disappoint them.”
That discipline also makes him humble. Despite the fact he could likely earn a scholarship to play at an ACC college, and that he is a member of the South African U-20 National Team, and that he has a legitimate chance to play for the country’s National Team and play in the World Cup or Olympics, and that his PSA teammate (and another South African) Aiden Muller describes his game as “amazing, like nothing else you’ve seen when he has the ball. He’s like a real South African player. He is a real South African national player,” despite all that, no one would know it.
“The game will humble you, and it has humbled me,” Kanyane said. “If you talk too much, eventually someone is going to make you stop talking. I would rather people watch me play and decide for themselves what they think of me as a player than for me to tell them what I think.”
Said DeMello: “If you have that ability, you don’t have to feel like you have to talk about it. People can see it. I don’t think he feels a need to go around talking about it.”
One thing he will talk about though is the comfort of being one of four South African natives on the team, with Hadly Bell rounding out the quartet.
“I don’t think I would be settled in the way I am right now without Jermaine, Aiden and Hadly,” he said. “The more I think of home, the more I miss it.”
He misses his friends there, as one would expect. He got a message from one the other night, giving him a hard time about not being there to go see “It 2” at the movie theater. He is a big fan of horror movies, much to his father’s dismay.
He misses his family more, and talks to them just about every day. “My mother especially. I call, she calls. She calls me more,” he said with a laugh. “She asks if I miss her cooking. There’s a basic meal, it’s like mielie-meal and chicken. But there’s no one who makes it as good as my mother. I do miss that a lot.”
Sounds like first impressions, and lasting ones, run in the Kanyane family.
Steve Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
..