Author: MBONILE BURTON
AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA Basketball Federation (TBF) has commended former national team player Henry Mwinuka who on Wednesday this week, was appointed a Rwanda national team’s assistant coach.
The federation’s president Phares Magesa told the ‘africa-press’ in Dar es Salaam that they have received the news with joy as he believes discipline, patience and hard work helped Mwinuka seal a vital post away.
“As federation, we are very delighted to see Mwinuka progress in Rwanda, we complement him for the achievement. We believe he will go even further than that and we wish him all the best in his new role,” he said.
Mwinuka star continued to shine in Rwanda after the country’s basketball governing body (FERWABA) called him to serve Rwanda national senior basketball team as an assistant coach.
The federation’s president Desire Mugwiza was quoted in a statement as saying: “FERWABA has the pleasure to announce the coaches of Rwanda Basketball National Senior team who will help the players to prepare for the team for FIBA Afrobasket 2021 scheduled to take place in Rwanda.”
The statement said that Mwinuka will assist the head coach Serbian Vradmir Bosnjak while Karim Nkusi will serve the team as second assistant coach.
Rwanda has stepped up preparations to host qualifiers for the 2021 African Basketball Championships (AfroBasket) to be held there in November next year.
Magesa said Mwinuka worked hard as a player in the various local and foreign clubs before switching to a coaching role.
His coaching role has been very impressive to the extent FERWABA has decided to give him the national team role.
Mwinuka won three league titles in four seasons with Rwanda giants Patriots side before crossing to their archrivals Rwanda Energy Group (REG) last November.
According to Mugwiza, Mwinuka will be the team’s assistant coach until the Afrobasket in August 2021.
Mugwiza was quoted as saying that Mwinuka’s winning mentality and experience in local basketball is a great boost for the Rwanda team.
Rwanda will not only host Group D qualifiers, but the country has also won the bid to host the AfroBasket finals tournament, scheduled to start from August 17th to 29th, 2021 at Kigali Arena.
Mwinuka also previously served as assistant coach of the Tanzania national basketball team from 2009 to 2010.
Prior to joining Patriots in December 2015, Mwinuka had previously worked with the University of Dar es Salaam Basketball Club from 2003-2006 and Savio Basketball Club in 2007-2008 before moving joining the Kampala International University (KIU) team from 2011 to 2015.
