A Year of Cricket
Watson fellow Fred Rweru studies the game he loves
By Alice Driver
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| Fred Rweru pictured at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. Lord’s has long been seen as the “Home of Cricket” and the game’s spiritual “headquarters.” |
“In 1979 the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was toppled by the Tanzanian Army. My mother, brother, and I spent the war hidden in a banana plantation in Kasese, six hours west of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. Milton Obote, who had lost power to Amin in 1971, regained it in 1980 and promptly lost it to General Tito Okello, who was then ousted by the current President, Yoweri Museveni, in 1986.”
So begins the story of Fred Rweru, a 2007 Berea College graduate who has embarked on a year-long Watson Fellowship titled “Leather, Willow, and Empire: Cricket’s ‘Mutation’ in Former British Colonies.” He will study cricket in the United Kingdom, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, India, and Australia.
As a young boy, Rweru attended Ntare School, a boarding school three hours west of Kampala. It was there, in 1990, that he met English cricket coach Derek Semence and learned to play the game. “I have never forgotten that day, when I first held a cricket bat and bowled, or the Caribbean soundtrack of that coaching video. I had found an activity that truly absorbed me,” Rweru says.
From that day forward, the young boy was consumed by a passion for cricket that filled his thoughts as well as his free time: he read about cricket, cut cricket articles from newspapers, made cricket scrap books, listened to games on BBC radio, and practiced batting and bowling with a tennis ball. Rweru’s interest in the sport grew yearly, and one professor even noted on a school report, “Fred could do a lot better in class if he stopped playing cricket.” Rweru heeded no such warning, and over a decade later, his love of cricket led him to apply for a Watson Fellowship.
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| Fred Rweru poses with some of the players at Acton Cricket Club in West London after practicing with them. |
Rweru, who began his project in June 2007, has been traveling to each country during its cricket season to play with cricket clubs, research the game’s history, interview players and coaches, and place the game within its socio-historical context. For example, in England he had access to more than twenty cricket clubs, as well as the Lord’s Cricket Ground Museum and the Library of Cricket at St. John’s Wood. In the West Indies he will interview Professor Hillary Beckles, who teaches West Indies Cricket History at the University of the West Indies in Bridgetown.
He is interested in the mutations of the game, in observing how and why the game, which originated in England, was adapted differently in former colonies of the British Empire.
“I intend to thoroughly examine, experience, and study four thrilling aspects of cricket: its medieval development and socio-political context in the British Empire in England, cross-batting, and fast-bowling in the West Indies (focusing on Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados), spin-bowling in India, and cricket’s scientific and technological innovation in Australia,” Rweru says.
Although Rweru’s love of cricket grew with each passing year, after high school his need to make a living led him to study hotel catering at the Makerere University Business School and take a job at the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala. He worked long days, made little money, and was often too tired to play cricket after work. In search of a living wage Rweru later worked for a mining company, drilling water boreholes in eastern Uganda. It was during this time that he lost hearing in one ear. Six years after graduating from Ntare School, six years in which he discovered the meaning of hard labor and the frustration of rarely having the time, money, or energy to play cricket, Rweru was accepted to Berea College. At Berea College Rweru majored in physical education with an emphasis in sports medicine. He hopes one day to become a teacher and coach. It was with these aims that he applied for a Watson Fellowship.
Rweru’s project is both hands-on and intellectual, with time on the field practicing as well as time in the library doing research. Rweru is traveling the world alone, his love of cricket motivating him and providing structure to his days.
There have been times of cold, rainy days, long bus rides, little sleep, and cold showers; and days when Rweru misses his family and friends or finds that a planned interview is impossible or a library closed for repair. On these days, Rweru recalls fond memories of playing cricket with friends or attending the 2000 International Council Cricket Trophy in Nairobi, Kenya, for inspiration.
After his Watson year, Rweru would like to work as a teacher and coach, sharing the insight he has gained from his year abroad with students.
“[Cricket] is an opportunity to leave something for posterity and contribute to the betterment of one’s community,” he says. “Cricket is where I have found this joy in life. I would like to spend my life teaching and inspiring others to enjoy and reach the very highest levels of cricket.”
In June 2008 Rweru will return to the United States replete with memories, experiences and life lessons, and the hope that he can share his knowledge with future students and athletes.
Alice Driver graduated recently from Berea College with a double major in English and Spanish. She is now working on her master’s degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky. She studied abroad in Spain, Mexico, and Costa Rica.