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Foreign Forces On The Court:

Spaniard and Aussie Give Basketball Squad A Boost

By Virginia Rayner, The Navigator, Vancouver Island University

Banimb Mbappe and Fraser Thompson don’t look out of the ordinary on a basketball team—both players tower above six feet, and they move well on the court. In fact, you wouldn’t notice a difference until they speak.

The 19 year-old point guard, Banimb Mbappe, was a last-minute draft by Coach Tony Bryce, who was keen to recruit the 6’3” player hailing from Girona, Spain, near Barcelona.                          

 Mbappe got into the Adult Basic Education program at VIU, and decided to come back to Canada after he spent a year on exchange in Parksville, playing for Ballenas. “I joined the basketball team there and after a good season some coaches from some universities start calling me to recruit me, and one of them was VIU. Coach Bryce was very interested and seemed really nice,” which convinced him to come back, Mbappe says.

Mbappe originally came to Canada “to learn the language and travel around the world,” wishing to gain some new experiences. He says he likes how quiet it is in Nanaimo, and how “everyone seems to be really nice […] I guess it’s true what they say about Canadians.”

The things Mbappe misses the most are hanging out with friends, and his mom’s cooking. “She is a very good cook,” he says. His favourite home-cooked food is “a Spanish rice called ‘Paella’ very typical in Spain. It’s delicious,” he says. The move, for him, has not been as difficult as it was during his earlier exchange, and he uses Skype and Facebook to stay in touch. “I’m having a good time, and I guess that helps me to not think too much about home.”

When he isn’t practicing or playing with the team, Mbappe says he likes to draw pictures of his friends and play videogames. His favourite workout song at the moment is “What Happened To That Boy” by American rapper Birdman.

Mbappe says he got interested in basketball through his two older cousins who played, and through his uncle who was a coach. “I’ve always looked up to them and they inspired me to play […] and they still help me to keep working hard on it.”

He admits that football (soccer) overshadows basketball in Spain, similar to hockey in Canada. But, he says he thinks “soccer in Spain and Europe is bigger than hockey in Canada.” In the future, he hopes to keep playing basketball, possibly in the Spanish Basketball League (ACB-Asociación de Clubs de Baloncesto). “That would be great,” he says.

Coming from across the Pacific, the 6’5” “and a half” Fraser Thompson, hailing from Melbourne, Australia, is a former rugby fly-half converted to basketball forward. Though Thompson was originally born in New Zealand, and is “still very proud” of his heritage, he says that beyond his fond regard towards the All Blacks and rugby, “consider me an Aussie.”

Thompson, having moved with his family to Melbourne in 1990, spent his fundamental years in the land of Vegemite and sunshine, both of which he says he misses, living here in Canada. However, Thompson says he likes not being stuck in traffic for hours, and is looking forward to “the chance there might be snow outside.”

The Aussie forward says it’s often difficult to phone home to friends and family, with a nineteen hour time difference, but he communicates through email and often gets “calls around midnight and [has] conversations half asleep.” He says his “parents’ house is empty now,” as his siblings have also moved out. “I think they miss the company of us all.”

Thompson, 23, is in his first year of a Business Admin. Degree at VIU, majoring in Management. The forward says besides working on offensive and defensive skills, the growing camaraderie within the team is “really important if we want to progress through finals.”

 Beyond work and basketball, Thompson says he has had little free time, but loves “going to the cinema,” and describes himself as a movie buff. Perhaps the most unusual thing about Thompson is his not-so-secret love of shoes. “I have about 50 pairs,” he says; “mainly Nike Airmax and Air Force Ones. My favourite pair [are] my Reebox Pumps.”

Contradictory to his love of hip-hop style shoes, Thompson says he “might be the only person in Canada not into hip hop and rap,” preferring bands like Black Sabbath. “Their song “Iron Man” really gets me going before games. I will sing it and get it into the other guys’ head[s]. They probably want to kill me after that.”

The transition from rugby to basketball hasn’t always been an easy one, as Thompson says that even though he doesn’t “go around beating people up,” if he does get hit, “I sometimes have the urge to tackle someone. That’s probably the best thing about rugby: if you get upset, you can just hit someone. In basketball, it’s hard to find a release for any frustration.”

Barring an invitation to join the All Blacks team, however, Thompson says he’s finished playing rugby. “I feel beat up after a basketball game. […] I don’t think I would last a rugby match anymore.” Though he would accept an All Blacks position, he says it’s “not because I like rugby more than basketball, but because the All Blacks mean so much to anyone born in New Zealand. Luckily, I would never get picked, so I’ll stick with VIU.”

In the future, Thompson hopes to sneak in one year of playing professional basketball in Australia, if only to say that “once my job was to just play ball.” Though he admits, in ten years, he’ll probably “be retired from basketball, working a desk job with a pot belly.”