BY ENOCK MUCHINJO
HARARE – Any budding sportsman anywhere on the planet will think you are kidding around if you tell them that they’ll one day play in the richest rugby league in the world.
What more if you were to predict that they’ll end up starring in the super-rich National Football League (NFL), the most profitable sports competition on the globe.
But one 22-year-old from Zimbabwe could end up accomplishing both unimaginable feats, if he manages to successfully switch sporting codes from rugby union to American football.
TJ Maguranyanga turns out for ASM Clermont Auvergne in the French Top 14, world rugby’s biggest domestic competition.
In December, Maguranyanga was selected alongside 13 others from different parts of the world, as part of an exclusive group of naturally-gifted athletes who will participate in the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) programme in the United States. The best in the pool will earn NFL contracts.
It is a challenge that does not faze somebody like Maguranyanga, a tenacious young fighter who was raised on a healthy diet of various sports disciplines, excelling in nearly each and every one of them before settling for rugby at professional level.
“Now my goal is to achieve greatness in the NFL and, most importantly, help grow the game of (American) football in Africa, especially Southern Africa,” Maguranyanga told SportsCast this week.
Maguranyanga is currently back in Harare, his hometown, and will fly out to Florida on 17 January for the 10-week training camp, where the athletes will display their skills in front of scouts ahead of next year’s NFL draft.
“Being one of only 14 athletes selected for the class of 2025 is an incredible honour,” said Maguranyanga. “I’m deeply grateful to Mark Dulgerian, the lead scout, as well as Dominic Fevrier-McPherson and Kris Durham, for travelling to Cape Town to assess me during a regional workout. I’m also immensely thankful to the IPP for recognising my potential and giving me this opportunity.”
Tall and muscular Maguranyanga is quite the workaholic, so ever since he was picked for the IPP in December, he hasn’t stopped exploring the intricacies of American football during private training in Harare.
“The switch has been incredibly exciting,” he said. “I’ve been training and using my body in ways completely different from when I played rugby. Fortunately, the transition has been made much smoother by the guidance of Keegan Cooke and Johnson Mabiza from the Sport Science Lab in Harare. I’m absolutely thrilled to have been selected for the programme. It’s been a lifelong dream to one day make it to the NFL, and being part of a programme that provides a clear pathway to achieve that is truly amazing. What the IPP programme is doing for talented athletes worldwide is remarkable. It not only provides opportunities for athletes to learn and grow but also inspires countless young people around the world to dream of one day being in a similar position. Growing up, I followed the NFL closely, and my favourite players were Ray Lewis and Odell Beckham Jr. My favourite teams were the Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks.”
Maguranyanga was privileged to attend top private schools with a strong sporting tradition. He started off at St John’s Preparatory in the Zimbabwean capital city. For senior school he went to Zimbabwe’s most eminent private school, Falcon College, before transferring to St Stithians College in South Africa, another conveyor belt of fine sporting talent.
All this would not have been possible without a solid family foundation.
“My family has been extremely supportive of my sporting career from a very young age,” Maguranyanga remarked. “My parents recognised my potential early on and did everything they could to nurture it. They made the sacrifice to send me to St John’s Prep in Harare, which was an excellent foundation for my development. Which then afforded me the opportunity to get sports scholarships at Falcon College and St Stithians College in Johannesburg.”
Natural athletic traits, and the early exposure to environments that place heavy emphasis on sport, will definitely stand Maguranyanga in good stead when the IPP camp begins this month.
“I firmly believe that growing up as a multi-sport athlete has been instrumental in developing diverse movement patterns that I wouldn’t have gained if I had specialised in just one sport,” commented Maguranyanga.
“This versatility will undoubtedly benefit me as I pursue a career in the NFL. If you look at some of the world’s best athletes, many of them played multiple sports growing up. In fact, several elite American athletes were All-Americans, or drafted in more than one sport. This highlights the strong positive correlation between multi-sport participation during childhood and overall athletic success.”
Given his many attributes such as speed, agility and strength – Maguranyanga was the star player in all the schoolboy basketball teams he played for. Now on top of the NFL pursuit, he hopes that being in America grants him another boyhood dream.
“I enjoy basketball, and if the opportunity to watch a game arises, I would absolutely love to experience it and watch LeBron James before he retires.”
But first things first – the NFL. To the untrained eye, Maguranyanga’s current sport, rugby, may appear similar to American football to a great degree. There are indeed contrasts, though, and Maguranyanga has no illusions about them.
“The closest similarity between rugby and American football is definitely the physicality of the two sports. However, from a technical standpoint, they are very different,” he said.
“American football is far more technical, largely due to its stop-start nature, where every single play is carefully planned. In contrast, rugby is a free-flowing game where players have to think and adapt in real-time without constant stoppages. This creates a sense of improvisations in rugby that isn’t as prominent in American football.”
Improvising, though, is a Thabani Jehiel Maguranyanga thing.
