[imagesource: Twitter / @Hacjivah]

When the final whistle blew on June 18, and the Stormers were crowned URC winners, Cape Town rejoiced.

Nobody rejoiced harder than loose forward Hacjivah Dayimani, who promised to party in his matchday kit until he met either President Ramaphosa or the Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis.

As you can see from that above snap, the latter came to the party, but it was a good few days before Dayimani eventually called time on his revelry.

What many people didn’t know, myself included, is that Dayimani had far more to celebrate than simply a winner’s medal. In fact, if his life story was turned into a Hollywood movie, it would be scarcely believable.

South Africans are well aware of the struggles Springbok skipper Siya Kolisi overcame on his way to greatness. Thanks to a superb article by RugbyPass writer Jamie Lyall, we now have some insight into Dayimani’s journey.

I recommend finding 10 to 15 minutes to read the full article. Below are a few standout moments:

An itinerant and traumatic childhood saw him lurch from province to province and school to school. His parents were not together and he bounced from his mother’s one-room township shack in Cape Town to his grandmother’s house far to the east before being sent to find his estranged father in Johannesburg.

Image: Ashley Vlotman / Gallo Images

Siblings and half-siblings – Dayimani has ten in total – crammed into these homes, sleeping wherever there was space on the floor. Food was a luxury. A working shower rare bliss. Often, his only option to traverse South Africa’s arid highways was to hitchhike.

When he was young, his mother sent him to live with his grandmother. Later, his grandmother sent him to live with his father, which meant hitchhiking from Cradock to Johannesburg.

Upon arrival, his father was not happy to see him:

Dayimani’s father banned him from playing rugby. As a strict Igbo Jew, he disapproved of any sporting activity on Saturdays, the holy Shabbat. Dayimani defied him and continued playing in secret but when his considerable talents earned him a 50% scholarship to Jeppe High, a prestigious boarding school where Jake White was a pupil and later a teacher, his father refused to pay the half fees required. Eventually, realising the boy’s dire straits, the school relented and offered a full bursary.

Dayimani says his father, who hails from Nigeria, was “raised as a child soldier” and remained staunchly opposed to his son’s rugby career, which led to their relationship all but ending.

In 2015, Dayimani scored for SA Schools against England, who were on tour, unaware that his father was battling terminal brain cancer.

He refused multiple calls from his uncle in the days after that match and it was only later that he met with his uncle and found out his father had passed away.

Ready the tissues:

“I went to the hospital and this lady who had looked after my dad started crying when she saw me. She said, ‘I can’t tell you how proud I am of you’. Why would she be proud of me? It turned out they’d put the TV on for my dad to watch the soccer highlights, and SuperSport showed the SA Schools rugby match, Hacjivah Dayimani scoring a try, the pundits were raving about how good I was. Apparently, my dad just started crying. He couldn’t stop. That’s when he tried to call me. I never picked up. That was the Saturday and he died on the Wednesday.”

Thankfully, Dayimani’s father left a voicemail and poured his heart out, saying he loved his son and that he was sorry he hadn’t been more supportive.

By the way, when that matchday kit finally came off, he donated his jersey to the Boland School of Autism and the sale raised close to R40 000.

The above excerpts only scratch the surface of this remarkable rise to the top. Go ahead and read the full story here.

Hacjivah, congrats – you deserve every bit of success that comes your way.

[source:rugbypass]