Tragedy fails to extinguish fighting spirit
Former Shark aims for Paralympics glory
CEDRIC Mkhize could have been a Springbok today, but instead he watches the team from the sidelines, his career cut short by a horrific car crash.
The former winger was just 22 when the accident near Bloemfontein left him paralysed from the waist down. Two teammates in the car with him, Ashley Mapisa and Nardus Wessels, were killed.
Mkhize, a Sharks player at the time, had been loaned to the Griffons, a lower-league provincial team based in Welkom.
Now, seven years later, Mkhize says he has got over the initial self-pity that he felt. “I was seeing guys that I played with doing all these great things,” he said of players such as Bismarck du Plessis and JP Pietersen, Sharks stars who are also Boks. “I wasn’t enjoying watching the sport.”
Mkhize and Du Plessis were teammates in the Bok under-21 team that won the World Cup in 2005.
He and Pietersen played together for the Baby Boks in 2006.
When Mkhize’s spirits were at their lowest ebb, he decided that sport would still be part of his life. It helped to pull him through.
“Rugby made me the person I am today,” he said. The people he met through the sport had a positive impact on his life “and they still do”.
He has taken up handcycling and rowing. He has twice competed in the Tour of Durban cycle race and has set his sights on representing South Africa at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
He has found a job at a Durban casino, training administration staff, and recently bought a home in the suburb of Musgrave.
Former Sharks coach Dick Muir, who gave Mkhize his chance in the KwaZulu-Natal team’s first XV, said he shared the former player’s optimism about the future.
Muir said there was a tenacious spirit about Mkhize that could not be ignored. He had been quick on the field, always willing to learn and always jovial.
“Mkhize was such a pleasure to coach. The accident was a tragedy for all of us,” said Muir.
“Mkhize is one of those never-say-die type of characters and he’ll just keep striving. Nothing is going to hold him back,” said his former coach.