Nakato's balancing act between rugby and football

Talk about multi talented athletes and you will fill a book. Basically, there is nothing new. But like one wise man said, there is no concept that has ever been told and exhausted. Everyday, the same stories will be told, albeit differently. 

Last season, a new face emerged onto the women's league scene and took the league by storm. Mary Nakato was the name. Aggressive, stout and super fast, Nakato blasted out like a super turbocharged machine. Problem is, she was on and off. 

It turns out she was chasing careers in both rugby and football, missing games on either side. 

Nakato is surely not the first woman to play football and rugby in Uganda. The likes of Racheal Kakaire, Hadija Namuwaya have been there before. 

Growing up in the talent hub of Walukuba in Jinja means Nakato lived amongst talented peers. Walukuba has arguably produced the biggest number of athletes in Jinja's history. Boxing. Football. Rugby. Name it.

At a young age, Nakato simultaneously hopped between football and tag rugby with ease, and this earned her a spot in Exuba Academy, which predominantly focused on young girls and focused mainly on football, netball, basketball and tag rugby. 

But when Exuba Academy went down, Nakato crossed to Samba Africa, whose football program was for boys. But she was unfazed and as time went on, she was joined by other girls. 

Back to rugby 
All this time, Nakato was still playing tag rugby. Her colleagues like Hellen Acanit Jeniffer Musanabera and Mary Gloria Ayot had fully concentrated on rugby and had their careers starting to be recognized.

Acanit and Musanabeera in Black Diamonds, Ayot in Walukuba Barbarians (which later became Black Pearls) before she moved on to Thunderbirds. 

"My friends kept calling me to join them but I wasn't in a rush. I still wanted to play football and besides that, I used to hear people say the coach (Koyokoyo Buteme) is a very tough woman so I didn't want to cross paths with her, until I found out that she's actually a very good person," explains Nakato. 

In 2021, Ayot eventually succeeded in persuading Nakato to join Black Diamonds and it's where Buteme saw her and took her through the basics of tackling safely, passing and hitting gaps.

Buteme remembers that it was a Thursday and there was a 7s tournament in Entebbe two days later. She included Nakato in the travelling squad.

Welcome to rugby

Unfortunately for Nakato, Black Diamonds were the first team on the pitch. Remember, Nakato had never watched a full rugby match or trained on a full pitch. The only training session she had had two days prior was only quarter a pitch, marked by cones. 

So she didn't know how to score, which came to haunt her. With her speed and elusiveness, she got the ball deep inside their territory and danced past opponents. All she could hear from her teammates was "dduka osaze layini" (run and cross the line).

She obliged, duly crossed the try line, and threw the ball forward. What a mess! The whole pitch went mad with laughter and shock.
Truth is, after crossing the line, she didn't know what to do with the ball.

Her teammates demonstrated to her and Buteme had a lot of explaining to do to the fans. 

Nakato quickly learned from her mistake and, according to Buteme, she emerged the Top Try Scorer in that tournament and the others that came afterwards.

Solid debut season 
Nakato again went off the rugby radar. She had joined a new football team, Jinja City Queens, and needed utmost concentration. 

She only bounced back at the beginning of the last 15s season, which Black Pearls won unbeaten. But still, she was caught up in dividing her time between rugby and football.

She ended up missing five of the 12 league games but whenever she played, she made her presence felt, managing to score 14 tries in seven games.

She has since developed into a fearsome try scoring machine that became a real menace to opponents, if last season's heroics are anything to go by.

In the Black Pearls outfit where players adorn catchy nicknames, Nakato is known as "Boda Boda" for her ability to find her way through traffic and tight spaces, akin to the famous two-wheelers on our roads. 

"During training she means business. She's an aggressive person and gives 100% and with her speed, she is a real threat with the ball," remarks Emilly Lekuru, her teammate and last season's top try scorer (69 tries).

Division of labour 

Nakato's quest for careers in both football and rugby is confusing. Last season saw her miss rugby games to play football, and vice versa. 
Jinja City Queens plays in the Eastern Regional League and that means lots of traveling. Black Pearls play most of their games in Kampala, plus a few in Entebbe and Jinja. 

Also, football training is Monday through to Saturday and Sunday is gamed day. Rugby training is Tuesday and Thursday and game day is Saturday. 

"I try as much as possible to fit into both sides. But of course sometimes it's tight to balance the two so I end up missing either rugby or football games," she says, and emphatically adds: "I don't want to lose out on either career because I love them both."

Asked to compare the two sports disciplines, Nakato stresses that contrary to popular belief, rugby is actually easier than football. 

"In football, I am a defensive midfielder and that means I stand between two departments (defense and midfield). That means I have to fetch the ball from my defense, pull it out and distribute it forward. Without the ball, I am the one to break the opponent's move before they reach our defence, which is much more tiring than in rugby where I can actually enjoy some rest as a fullback," she says.

Nakato's brother, Peter Onzima, is a footballer at SC Villa, and a Uganda Premier League winner last season. Perhaps, that also pushes her to keep footballing and hoping that it pays off as it did for her brother.

Double champions

On May 18, Black Pearls won the 15s league for the third season on the bounce. This was Nakato's first and it came with deep emotions. Her team played early kickoff (2pm) on the very same day SC Villa were playing NEC FC in a do-or-die league closing match.

The league had gone to the last day and The Jogoos needed a win to lay their hands on their first league trophy in two decades.

"I was playing but my heart was restless. I knew we had all but sealed the league, and I wanted the same for my brother. So after our game I grabbed my phone and tensely followed the football game online. When Villa won, I jumped like a mad person around King's Park," she recalls.

That night the household of Simon Andiku and Sherina Avuko had two champions under their roof, which Nakato speaks about with untold pride. 

"My brother has gone through a lot of pain to get to the top so when we both presented our medals to our parents, they prayed for us to keep progressing and that means the world to us," she adds. 

Off the pitch

Life has a way of shaping up in unexpected ways. Nakato remembers the flexing she had to go through with her mother, who, at the start of it all, was not in approval of her football and rugby careers.

Until she landed a football bursary from Primary Five to Senior Four. That opened the way for her mother's nod and she has since become an important person in the family, channeling the small monies from her rugby and football careers to help out with the family's demands. Her parents are both unemployed. 

"There is not much money but the little you get in allowances can do something at home. I am not the kind that splashes money because I don't have it. Every coin has to be carefully budgeted for," she adds.

Nakato, a Senior Four leaver, has ventured into livestock farming, starting with five goats, hoping to change her family's fortunes in future.

She believes that sports can actually propel one out of hardship if a career is well managed and planned for, but since the local sporting setting is still amateur, one needs to cast their nets elsewhere, hence the choice for goat rearing.

This season Nakato has already played some few games for the Black Pearls in the 7s league and also played for Jinja City Queens in their football engagements and is still believing that she can balance the two and keep on top. Until the day one completely outweighs the other.

For now, she still has the time.