Five of my friends were shot. One was hit twice in the head. We said our goodbyes to him later in the hospital. But he survived. We all did.
ROCKS STAR KIERON ACHARA STORY TELLS HIS REMARKABLE
HE was in the lift when he heard the shots. ‘I eventually made it outside and it was absolutely pandemonium. It was crazy,’ says Kieron Achara, basketball player, Olympian, father and survivor.
‘I had just left the party, five minutes, no more. But after I had gone, five of my team-mates were shot. One got hit twice in the head. We said our goodbyes to him later at the hospital. But he survived. We all did.’
Achara is talking after practice with the Glasgow Rocks at the Emirates Stadium. The events of that day almost 11 years ago in Pittsburgh have remained — until now — largely unspoken, deep in the 6ft 9in frame of Scotland’s most famous basketball export.
‘I could not speak of it for years. I can only talk of it now,’ he says of the bloodshed and sudden horror caused by a jealous boyfriend confronting students at Duquesne University.
‘I blamed myself,’ says Achara, now 33, who was attending the university on a basketball scholarship. ‘I was the team captain. I took them all to the party. Then there was that pandemonium. The scenes in the street.
‘One guy who was shot actually drove another victim to the hospital which was nearby. One player was critically injured. We were told he would die. Somehow he got through but he still suffers to this day from seizures.’
The pain continues for Achara but he is grateful to a priest who counselled him at the university and the balm of time that has led him to be a fulfilled partner to Megan, a nurse in Paisley, and a besotted father of two-year-old Adelyn. ‘I am more at ease about it now. I can talk about it now. The priest helped me accept it was not my fault,’ he says.
Sam Ashaolu, the most grievously-wounded victim, now coaches as a volunteer. ‘He could not live without basketball,’ says Achara. ‘Sam had to fight for his life, he still has to fight every day. I am privileged to be on court. When things get hard, I think of that Duquesne team.’
It is tempting to suggest to Achara that life had its hard experiences long before the shootings and that he has endured the odd, painful dunt since. But he brushes this away: ‘I do not see my life as tough.’
It is certainly remarkable. His mother left his father in Nigeria to return to Stirling when Achara was a toddler. He became doubly conspicuous: he was black and he became very big, very quickly.
‘When I was 12 , I was six foot with a size 12 shoe,’ he says, adding with a smile: ‘I could act my age and my shoe size at the same time.’
But how did it feel to be black, gangling, and from a one-parent family in an area where at least one of those traits was extraordinary and all were restricted to Kieron and his older brother?
‘When you are young it is all about fitting in and clearly I didn’t,’ he says. ‘I was very different. My mother taught me to embrace being different. That is a hard thing. Being black can be tough enough, but being so tall…
‘I learned to embrace being unique. This turned into a selfbelief thing, a sort of “it’s good to be different”. On the plus side, too, it is a great icebreaker.
‘People remember me. But this means I can’t hide. I cannot set a foot wrong. I am always being judged. This has helped me stay on an even keel.’
But the journey to Duquesne and the voyage from it has had stabilising constants and an unwavering personal compass.
The first can be found in the shape of Marion Afzal, his mother who remarried after returning to Stirling. The second was set by both his mother and his maternal grandfather, Bob Murphy, who instilled in the boy the work ethic that would make him a man.
‘Hard work is something I have always been around. My mother had three jobs when I was young. My grandfather was a great role model, always working to improve himself. My stepfather is a grafter. All that is normal to me,’ he says. Basketball, at first, was merely a means to an end. ‘There was a level of apathy towards education then. That made me want to be different. University was the driver for me,’ he says. Hard work, study and basketball took him there. Achara, incredibly, only started to play basketball when he was 14.
Not quite 20 years later, he can look back on a career that has taken him to the Olympics and made him a living in Italy, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria and now Scotland.
‘Basketball all happened very quickly,’ he says. Within two years of playing seriously, he was offered scholarships and headed to Pittsburgh. ‘I never really wanted to play basketball but I came to love it. It has formed my life.’
The lessons were not restricted to achieving a degree in leadership, management and marketing that helps in his role as regional club development manager at Basketball Scotland.
There was the education of an innocent abroad, the building of an inexperienced athlete and the growth of a personality. ‘I left on a plane with a wave to my mum and we were crying our eyes out,’ he says. ‘My then girlfriend had written me a letter and I read it in tears during the flight.
‘I was homesick then and later. I was always homesick, even as a professional. But I knew what I wanted and nothing was going to stop it.’
He was told by his university coach that he was not good enough. But proved him wrong. He was cut from the Great Britain squad a year before the Olympics but, after asking what he was doing wrong, addressed it and played with distinction at London 2012.
He has lost front teeth, torn shoulder muscles and had stress fractures in his feet. He plays on.
But what keeps him going, how does he feel about the sacrifices he has made?
‘Sacrifices? No, I focus on the rewards. When I was cut from the
One guy who was shot actually drove a victim to hospital I could act my age and my shoe size at the same time
You want to forget the bad but it is what forms you
Olympics squad in 2011, I looked at my mum for inspiration,’ Achara adds.
‘I thought of quitting but mum said: “You have worked way too hard for this to give up”.
‘But don’t talk to me about sacrifices. Yes, it wasn’t fun getting up at half five to go for a run, or having your teeth knocked out or being homesick.
‘That’s not fun. But all that is dwarfed by the rewards. It’s not fun studying for a test but passing it is rewarding.’
He is unsure how and where his career will end.
The European Championships this season will be followed by the Commonwealth Games next year. The Rocks, under new ownership, have a promising future. The present is exciting, too, with a crucial quarter-final second-leg match tomorrow at the Emirates against London Lions in the BBL Championship play-offs. ‘It could be two or three years,’ he says of an end to his playing career. ‘Who knows? I want to get the transition right as I want to do something I believe in.’ This precise role may yet be unformed but the drive and purpose behind it is not. Achara has a message and he is eloquent in articulating it.
‘My one priority? I would go to schools in America and all the pupils would believe they could make something of their lives, no matter how bad the neighbourhood,’ he says.
‘But in Scottish schools there is a feeling of apathy in some of the areas. There is a belief among some children that “we can’t go to uni, we can’t do this, we can’t do that”.
‘I want to tell them: “Have selfbelief, good things can happen if you work for them. You can be something, guys. Never give up. Confidence can be built. Be your personal best. Be a better you”.’
But what does he carry from the flight from Africa, the tough, growing years in Stirling, the injuries in Europe, the shots in Pittsburgh?
‘I have had more than my share of the good,’ he says. ‘You want to forget the bad. But it is what forms you.’