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Yomi Sangodeyi

Yomi (Yommy) Sangodeyi (born in 1963) (57 years old) is a Nigerian, former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association. He played center, and was best known for his incredible hook shot, jump shot, and slam dunks. Sangodeyi had a successful basketball career in Nigeria with the Ogun Rocks, one of Nigeria’s best teams. Since retiring, Sangodeyi has contributed his time and efforts off of the court to better Nigerians lives and more broadly African lives all together through the group he created called MOABI which creates affordable and sustainable housing for communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yomi also started the I Hope International Academy to help young athletes prosper.

Basketball Career

Yomi Sangodeyi started off his career in basketball when he saw the Nigerian National Basketball team and its coach at the pool in town. The coach was from Yugoslavia and he came up to talk to Sangodeyi due to his athleticism and started to make him practice rebounding. Yomi joined the national team in the late 1970s and played with them into the 80s. Yomi played for many teams in Nigeria where he emerged a winner on every team especially with the renowned Ogun Rocks, for whom he played for many years. He then went on to play at the NCAA division one collegiate level at Sam Houston State University in Texas. At Sam Houston, he was First-Team All-Conference and then First-Team All-American in division 1 basketball and majored in criminology. Sangodeyi almost lost his NCAA eligibility in 1982 and was almost ineligible for the NBA Draft because he was deceived into thinking he could try out for NBA teams and then declare for the draft that year. Sangodeyi ended up gaining his eligibility back and furthering his basketball career at Sam Houston State University and beyond. He was drafted by the New Jersey Nets in 1984 in the third round but never played a minute in the NBA. He impacted one of the greatest players in NBA history in Hakeem Olajuwon. It has been said Hakeem’s story would not be complete without Sangodeyi’s impact on him by learning from Yommy on the Ogun Rocks. Hakeem was considered Yommy’s protege. Yommy only played in the NBA from 1984 to 1985 before taking his career overseas to Italy, Israel, Sweden, and Brazil where he had more success. His career ended in Brazil and after he was done playing basketball he met his wife Delphine Sangodeyi who was from France, in Brazil.

MOABI Group

Delphine Sangodeyi and Yomi Sangodeyi founded the company MOABI Group in order to give back to the Sub-Saharan African community. The group’s objective is to, “improve real estate environment and market opportunities by specializing in the planning, design, funding and development of large scale residential properties targeting the middle of the pyramid households.” The Sangodeyi’s were concerned with affordable and sustainable housing within Sub Saharan African cities. The strategy they have put in place has led to success based on 5 pillars which are sustainable urban development, innovation, quality, adaptation to the demand, large scale projects realization for economies of scale. The components of their strategy to improve the issue of affordable housing is, “transforming the housing need in effective demand” and “building quality of affordable housing by controlling construction costs through a sustainable development approach.” Some of the projects they have started in order to achieve their objective is affordable housing projects in Badagry, Nigeria and in Port Harcourt. In Badagry, they plan to start with a pilot run of 200 sustainable homes and if it goes well they will expand the project. In Port Harcourt, they plan to start with 250 homes and then get to 2000 homes by 2025. In Nigeria, MOABI Group also represents a market of three million housing units that can be rented or purchased by Nigerian civilians. They have various publications on the topic of affordable and sustainable housing to talk about why they are helping the community and how they are doing it with the housing units. The MOABI Group is very dedicated to providing sustainable and affordable housing and Yomi Sangodeyi wanted to give back to his community by doing this.

I Hope International Academy

The I Hope International Academy (High Hope Academy) was established by Yomi Sangodeyi in order to give back to his community by teaching young athletes his knowledge on the game of basketball, giving opportunities to kids who have the potential or talent to be a great student-athlete and provide them with a better education, it also assists kids in being able to achieve their dreams academically or athletically through these clinics. He has established academies in Taiwan, Morocco and Nigeria to help kids achieve their dreams. The academies are not your typical schools; it is various basketball or athletic training sessions that push kids usually in groups of 10-20 in each session to become a better athlete physically and mentally. The training sessions help kids to, “enhance their reflexes, reaction times and decision making, while improving and expanding their knowledge of the game.”

Death of Yomi Sangodeyi

Yommy Sangodeyi died in Nigeria on October 16th, 2020 due to complications with lung cancer and coronavirus but will still continue to leave an impact on the African Community.

Bibliography

Anwankwo, Akan. “Yomi Sangodeyi, 57, Nigerian Basketball Legend Dies from Lung Cancer, COVID-19,” October 16, 2020. https://www.legit.ng/1375301-yomi-sangodeyi-nigeria-basketball-star-dies-age-57.html.

Comment upi.com/5944819, (0) Leave a. “Six-Foot-10 Nigerian Yommy Sangodeyi Has Been Cleared by a...” UPI. UPI, August 31, 1982. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/08/31/Six-foot-10-Nigerian-Yommy-Sangodeyi-has-been-cleared-by-a/3143399614400/.

“International Basketball Academy Taiwan.” Accessed October 28, 2020. http://www.findglocal.com/TW/Taipei/1258136184268790/International-Basketball-Academy-Taiwan. “1984–85 New Jersey Nets Season,” December 6, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984%E2%80%9385_New_Jersey_Nets_season. Oguntuyi, Akinbode. “Hakeem Olajuwon Heads List of 5 Greatest Nigerian Basketball Players.” ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, April 25, 2017. https://africa.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19238934/hakeem-olajuwon-heads-list-5-greatest-nigerian-basketball-players. Sangodeyi, Yomi, and Delphine Sangodeyi. “Moabi Group - Our Team.” International Real Estate Development. Accessed October 25, 2020. https://www.moabigroup.com/our-team/. Sangodeyi, Yomi. “Yomi Sangodeyi Linkedin Profile.” Linkedin. Accessed October 25, 2020. https://fr.linkedin.com/in/yomi-sangodeyi-5085b221. “Wall of Fame.” Hoops Factory. Accessed October 25, 2020. https://www.hoopsfactory.com/wall-of-fame/.