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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter

GIRLS High School head in charge of basketball, Itayi Chafota, has spent the last decade either in class or on the basketball courts.

He is the brains behind the all-students Harare Basketball Association A league side, Greenstars, which also has a feeder club (Greenstars Academy) that plays in the Women’s B League.

Both clubs were formed in 2010.

And Chafota, a teacher at the school has, for the first time in 10 years, neither been cheering his teams nor teaching since a national lockdown was effected in March to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

“The lockdown period has been very painful but it is a very necessary and important intervention by the authorities to contain the coronavirus scourge,” said Chafota.

“You know, since forming Greenstars Academy in 2010, I haven’t really been confined at home for a week even during my leave days.

“My routine has always been like, in class in the morning during week days and at the basketball courts in the afternoon, helping our full-time coaches.

“At the weekends, mostly, we are either playing friendlies or some other competitive games including the league.”

But, Chafota, has had to do that from home for the past three months, delivering some academic tips to his students and individual training methods to basketball players, some of whom are also his students.

“Remember the team is made up of school children whom we also urge to strike a balance between the sport and their academic work.

“I am almost always very busy. I have to talk to the players. I have to talk to the parents and guardians as well as the coaches (Clement Kufeketa and Onai Mzopori).”

Several of the players, just like most basketball players nationwide, have erected makeshift baskets to perfect and retain shooting skills.

Chafota’s biggest worry is whether one of the players, Mellisa Mwanza, will be able to realise her dream.

Before the lockdown, Mwanza secured a scholarship with a United States-based university and was scheduled to start her studies in August.

Several other players, including Mellisa Makuwe, Stabile Nyandini, Nancy Ticharwa, Maria Mutengo, Mary Chawaipira, Mellisa Majonga and Cynthia Mango, had already joined their new clubs in South Africa and Zambia on scholarships before the lockdown.