Hung out to die
16 Dec 2011
RYAN VREDE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says the late Solly Tyibilika was always fighting a losing battle.
Solly Tyibilika’s career died long before his life ended. Indeed, a strong argument can be made that his life ended because his career died.
The why and how are important in equal measure when reflecting on his career and life. Why Tyibilika, who, by all accounts, had become mixed up with elicitors of trouble, was murdered in a hail of bullets in a Gugelethu shebeen on a Sunday afternoon, was still under investigation at the time of writing. How the 32-year-old went from crossing the tryline on debut for the Springboks in 2004 to lying in police chalk lines seven years later, is compelling. It is the rugby tragedy of our time.
I was lunching with a Springbok and former team-mate of Tyibilika’s at the time the news of his death broke. As details of its nature emerged – a calculated, gang-style hit that saw his body pumped with what an eye witness deemed ‘countless shots’ – his reaction struck me as strange. Tyibilika’s violent end was not unexpected. Through at least 20 text messages the player showed me it became apparent that this sentiment was shared by even those players who were closest to him. Certainly his death was lamented in these messages, but it was telling that most senders were not particularly surprised by its nature.
‘When Solly felt cared for he was invested in his career and determined to succeed,’ the player said. ‘When he felt hard done by he could be pretty self-destructive.’
There were to be increasing instances when his emotional immaturity manifested in this manner as his career progressed. But this wasn’t always so. Tyibilika caught the Sharks’ eye in 2003 off the back of impressive performances for Griquas. He would establish himself as a regular member of their Super Rugby squad – his pace, upper-body strength, work rate and robust approach placing him among the top openside flankers in the country at the time. He lacked the finesse, guile, vision and tactical appreciation that separated the good scavengers from the great ones, but attained a level of consistency that appealed to Springbok coach Jake White in late 2004.
There were muted grumbles of a political agenda when Tyibilika was named in White’s end-of-year tour squad. However, the overriding feeling was that Tyibilika had the potential to develop into a more than competent Test player.
He acquitted himself well on debut against Scotland at Murrayfield, becoming the first black African to score a try for the Springboks. He started against Argentina in Buenos Aires a week later and maintained a high enough standard domestically in 2005 to be a part of White’s squad for the Test season. There had been little evidence to support rhetoric about the wealth of world-class black talent in Tyibilika’s home province, the Eastern Cape. Tyibilika, it appeared, would be a groundbreaker in this regard, particularly since he was a forward, a rare commodity in a region renowned for producing backline players.
Then something happened that hinted at a delinquent demon that would surface with greater and lesser degrees of intensity as his career progressed. The Springboks staged a Test in East London against Uruguay. Tyibilika scored twice in the 134-3 rout and later invited friends who had travelled from his hometown, New Brighton, up to his hotel room to share a celebratory drink. He left three days later, having missed the team’s flight to Durban and depleting most of his not inconsiderable match fee.
Still, there were glimpses of brilliance that inspired. A month later Tyibilika would outplay Australian George Smith in a Tri-Nations Test at Ellis Park, before being injured and substituted at half-time by Schalk Burger.
The Springboks won 33-20 but Tyibilika only featured in the southern hemisphere showpiece again a year later, playing in losing sides in three Tests, although not looking an impostor in elevated company. This was particularly pertinent, given that in a post-match press conference a week before, White had intimated that Tyibilika was included because of the colour of his skin. There was a clamour for the in-form Luke Watson’s inclusion after the Springboks suffered a 49-0 defeat to Australia in Brisbane, but White explained his decision to go with Tyibilika, in light of Danie Rossouw’s tour-ending injury, saying: ‘We need to be honest about sensitivities of the make-up of the team and show that transformation is happening in our country. We have got a guy like Solly on tour. There is a relationship in a team structure and we need to be considerate to that dynamic between the players.’
In Burger’s injury-enforced absence White later called Tyibilika the best openside flank in the country prior to the Loftus Test against New Zealand. The 47 minutes Tyibilika played in that heavy defeat would be his last for the Springboks.
This had much to do with a move to the Lions in 2007, one, he said, necessitated by the lack of game time he was getting in Durban. Breaking into the World Cup squad was his top priority and White had offered assurances that he was in the planning for the tournament. Eager to make a good impression on his new employers, Tyibilika trained relentlessly in the off-season and was unrivalled in the conditioning stakes when tests were conducted in camps in preparation for the Super Rugby campaign. However, his contribution amounted to little more than hit-outs in a couple of pre-season friendlies. Deemed surplus to requirements, Tyibilika was relegated to the Vodacom Cup side, where, he claimed, the coach wasn’t aware of his demotion and not prepared to integrate him into his plans. Thus began Tyibilika’s descent, marked by regular absenteeism and an ever-declining appetite for the game and its demands. His hunger for hedonism grew in direct proportion. He was relegated to club rugby. This a year after playing the All Blacks. The Lions released him from his R700 000-a-year contract. His ambition of breaking into the World Cup squad lay in tatters. He would end up watching the final in an East London shebeen.
The South African Rugby Union (Saru) made weak attempts at rehabilitating a man it once claimed to have great faith in. The Lions are even more culpable. Certainly Tyibilika must not be mitigated for his self-destructive behaviour, but he was failed by those who professed to have his interests at heart.
He is not alone in this regard. There have been varying levels of incompetence and irresponsibility in Saru’s dealings with black players specifically. Top South African coach Heyneke Meyer relayed the story of Chiliboy Ralepelle and Hilton Lobberts’ selection to tour Europe with the Springboks in 2006 to me. Ralepelle and Lobberts were among the best in their positions in the world at U19 level. Prior to their announcement in the squad Meyer pleaded with Saru not to take them, citing their emotional and physical immaturity and stressing that they would be better equipped two years from then.
Lobberts is said to have blown the R400 000 he made on two Volkswagen GTIs, supporting Meyer’s former assertion. He hasn’t played for South Africa in five years and hasn’t looked close to doing so. Ralepelle struggled with recurring injuries thereafter, lending support to the latter offering. He also suffered at the hands of national coaches who told the world he was rugby royalty, but treated him like a leper.
There are others who exhibited a capacity to overcome setbacks, former Springbok wing Ashwin Willemse being the prime example. Despite being plagued by injuries, Willemse refused to allow his spirit to be killed. He regained fitness and was included in the 2007 World Cup squad. He now has a burgeoning career as an analyst on SuperSport that is far removed from the path his life could have followed had he opted to surrender to Hope’s assassin and return to the drug and gang culture that was a feature of his childhood. Tyibilika didn’t possess Willemse’s immense resolve. His tendency for self-sabotage demanded that he had a strong mentor, even a team of them, who could constantly reinforce his value, celebrate his talent and be prepared to talk hard when needed. In addition, he also needed brutal honesty and a clearly defined goal from his coaches. Instead he found the validation and emotional investment he sought from men who fuelled the beast within.
There is no question that Tyibilika was a fundamentally good man whose life course diverted from a route that promised a rich legacy to one that led to a premature and deeply saddening end. But that alone doesn’t warrant bringing his story into the national consciousness.
There are lessons in Tyibilika’s life and his violent death that must be heeded by the game’s administrators. History reflects that professional black athletes, specifically those from low socio-economic backgrounds, are more prone to delinquency than their white counterparts. A range of explanations has been offered for this, the primary one being the former’s generally underdeveloped emotional intelligence and life skills which compromises their capacity to adequately deal with their ascent from paupers to princes. This rings true for South African rugby players, where that division between privileged and poor is even more pronounced.
This is the stark education that Tyibilika’s story must provide. It is utterly unacceptable that 16 years into the professional era the game’s administrators still haven’t established a world-class programme that focuses on equipping young black players with the skills needed to negotiate challenges they will encounter in their careers. This must be an issue that commands immediate attention.
Tyibilika possessed some measure of fight even in the last moments, dragging his bullet-riddled body across the ground for a couple of metres in search of help. His physical wounds ultimately proved to be mortal, but the mental wounds he incurred in the latter part of his professional career had long since killed his spirit. How different it could all have been had someone cared for him enough to make his mind bulletproof.
– This article appears in the January issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, on sale now at selected outlets
454 Comments
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18 Dec 2011, 21:15 pm
@charo-50: Yes… On my seventh of nine lives… That’s if I’m actually lucky enough to have nine in the first place.
Some things you win and some you lose… Sometimes you just got to hope that when you lose, you don’t lose big…
18 Dec 2011, 21:19 pm
@Heavens Game-146: Same as your “liberal” nonsense labelling…
@Heavens Game-149: Says the guy who rated the Sharks midfield over the Stormers’ in 2011 right before they had their arses handed to them.
18 Dec 2011, 21:23 pm
Good grief Ridley and Tony Scott make the best action movies ever
18 Dec 2011, 21:28 pm
@Michael-152: liberal “nonsense” labelling…? Come now… Liberal = PC = bleeding heart fascist = champagne socialist.
You know its true. Easy as Pie.
Especially since I now know from your reference you think of yourself as liberal…
18 Dec 2011, 21:32 pm
@Michael-152: Oh did I rate the Sharks midfield over the Stormers? Explicitly where?
And when did the Sharks have their arses handed to them…? In the S15, yes, after a game in another hemisphere, but not in the CC…
And what trophy do either the Stormers or WePee have? Ahhh yes Double Velvet Conference Winners… lol
18 Dec 2011, 21:37 pm
@Heavens Game-154: Uh huh.
@Heavens Game-155: While the Sharks have kept Turnstile on the books, failed to reach the Super semis again and have zero trophies – the arch-chokers, even more than my beloved Stormers.
18 Dec 2011, 21:43 pm
@Michael-156: When last did the Sharks win something… Aaah yes, the Currie Cup 2010.
When last did the Stormers or WePee win something… Ahem… (Unless of course you gaze on your Conference winning credentials with that choking adam’s apple of extreme pride)
But then again if there was a conference system in place from the beginning of Super Rugby the Sharks would have been hands down winners more than any other SA team. lol
Turnstiles stats are probably as good as JdV’s in Super Rugby… So the laugh may be on you… And howzat “awesome” Stormers midfield looking for next year… Hehehe
18 Dec 2011, 21:45 pm
Nothing like a lily liberal wetting his pants about his “beloved” Stormers… Farken funnyshit…. lol
18 Dec 2011, 21:50 pm
Sharks WP liberal conservative bulltwang
18 Dec 2011, 21:56 pm
this Heaven’s Game moron seriously thinks he’s some kind of hard liner conservative know it all.. the abysmal schmuck needs his head shoved right up that highfalutin arse of his that smells so f’ng atrocious with all the garbage he stuffs into his pathetic moronic miserable monkeeface
18 Dec 2011, 21:59 pm
Crikey fkn Moses these fkn hippies, god help us all.
Even cane – mopheads rule a ok ek se.
18 Dec 2011, 22:01 pm
yeah God help you all because you pathetic fck’d up science worshiping neanderthals can’t do fckall about helping yourselves…
18 Dec 2011, 22:05 pm
if God don’t come through and help you then you are so well and truly fck’d its a foregone conclusion you monkee see monkee do science worshiping twats and money groveling imbeciles are hitting the wall pretty much anytime soon…
18 Dec 2011, 22:09 pm
Farken liberal hippies… Gotta laugh at them fools
Champagne socialists unite…
18 Dec 2011, 22:11 pm
Why my comments not being posted?
18 Dec 2011, 22:16 pm
Where’s the hippies?
18 Dec 2011, 22:16 pm
hippies don’t drink champagne nor beer nor 7 year old bottled charde-farken-nay they smoke weed and pop acid.. way too severe and hard line brave for chicken arsed little molly coddled self styled rambo conservative chicken sh’ts who don’t know lily squat f’all about where the next fallout is gonna come from..
18 Dec 2011, 22:40 pm
yeah u get whacked so fkn hard, i be wearing a wee bowtie, just for you. u fkn ou doos, i dunno whether to be respectful or just moer u into next week.
18 Dec 2011, 22:44 pm
chrust almight these hippies talking **** again, wtf happened to censorship, shut them up ekse, its not as if they make any sense…
18 Dec 2011, 22:48 pm
Easy to label these farken liberal bleeding heart champagne freedom fighters… Talk left, walk right the lot of them.
18 Dec 2011, 22:51 pm
Farken high and might vegans must voessek too… Gwaan, man!
18 Dec 2011, 23:13 pm
weed and acid, get serious, if u going to go the hedonistic route, at least make a game of it,what a joke. god gerd what a bunch of palookas. go hard or go home, but dont come with your weed and acid poefda shite. in fact, u should paint lips on your arse, talkin out your hole like that, its goddamn not right.
18 Dec 2011, 23:22 pm
@ashampoopaloo-167:
agghhh those were the days
18 Dec 2011, 23:30 pm
@Heavens Game-157: whopper, winning an understrength cc is so much more than the confluence… Game dreaming dude.
18 Dec 2011, 23:32 pm
@cab-172: @Heavens Game-170: behind every conservative is a human being dying to escape.
18 Dec 2011, 23:33 pm
@Michael-175:
break loose mickey, no-one’s holding u back.
18 Dec 2011, 23:56 pm
@cab-176: bring the wors
18 Dec 2011, 23:57 pm
Big talking pretentious scientists that are nothing of the sort.. they think they know so much about what gives in the universe when they live in their little cuckold cocooned world of materialist make believe.. do the g’dam experiments on yourself.. ; at least like Dr Timothy Leary did … not on poor innocent little field rats that can’t tell you f’all… then at least you know how and what cuts.. you sit in your ivory tower cocoons and reckon you know whats what.. when its absolutely obvious you don’t…
18 Dec 2011, 23:57 pm
@Michael-177:
we got old ***** baggins’ here and his mate, freedom flower fukkadilly, who reckons he is not the conservative when that is precisely what they are, goddamn its a funny country. viva the republiek.
18 Dec 2011, 23:58 pm
why cant i say dildobaggins, aint no one been the to movies?
19 Dec 2011, 00:00 am
leary get serious, leary fkd in the head, nothing came out of that pip of any importance, nothing whatsover, same as half u tools and u zoltan theories of alien landings, mgic cartpets flying from india via heathrow and mayan prophecies, total kak man, not an orignal thought in your kops, just kak.
19 Dec 2011, 00:03 am
Leary same kind as your schmuck Dawkins.. thinking they know squat when they don’t
same as idiots like you who so far up your ownanus you can’t see credence from the clear water you been looking in
19 Dec 2011, 00:04 am
at least Leary had the courage to do his own experiments unlike these two faced materialists who don’t know the beginnings of the real state of matter or the fabric of the universe they think is so absolutely real…
19 Dec 2011, 00:09 am
you got any original thoughts… bring it man.. where is your original f’ng thought?.. you don’t even know what thought or thinking IS let alone where it originates.. or what an original thought might be…
19 Dec 2011, 00:10 am
u all been spoonfed on a diet of fire&brimstone biblebashers, greame hancok and david icke and koos kombuis type new-age califiornian surfing safara shite, when your minds are cut so deep in intractibility you need a tractor to pull you out, but its way too late for that cant teach an old dog new tricks.
christus almight what he talking about the fabric of the universe for, he talking out his ******** again, get the fkn makeup marjorie, and it was u who dissed CCR infavour of some indian fella who like to go FAAARRRTTTT, and u u all go OMMMMM..he wise man…
19 Dec 2011, 00:13 am
bring your original thought you dumb fckn doos.. I’m waiting here patiently to hear your stupefied original f’ng thought you pathetic moronic materialist arse creep mesmerized fckd up imbecile moron…
19 Dec 2011, 00:16 am
no, for a change, why dont u give us all an original thought? just one, afterall u watchatuts know it all, come on tell us something about the world that we dont know…come on, spit it out, no more dancing round the rosemary bush like the twatasses u all are are…say someting concrete for once. say something real not dressed up in the bushels of bullshit you mascerade round in.
19 Dec 2011, 00:19 am
what those areseholes like Icke and them idiots like dawkins and your cronies know is downright dangerous.. same as the garbage you pissarse imbecilic neutron pushing materialists think you know.. you know f’ng zilch about anything yet you sit in judgment on anyone you wouldn’t know from dildobaggins you dumb fck dunce klutz mummified mongrel
19 Dec 2011, 00:20 am
not a fkn chance, will you get anything apart from bullshit. bullshit baffles brains.
19 Dec 2011, 00:21 am
come on then, tell us something, teach us all o great One, lets hear it, stop fking about.
19 Dec 2011, 00:22 am
I’m still waiting for your ‘original f’ng thought’ you dumb fck ignoramus klutz arse moegoe dunce…
19 Dec 2011, 00:23 am
you wanna know anything.. do the f’ng experiment yourself.. you pathetic half arsed pseudo excuse of a dumb fck ignoramus materialist so called ‘scientist’,,,
19 Dec 2011, 00:23 am
I;ll give you ten original thoughts in as many seconds, but you the great Kenner so come on, lets hear it, tell us one thing those scientists dont know, come on then, just one thing, should be easy for you.
19 Dec 2011, 00:24 am
fkoff u miserable poeslike does.
19 Dec 2011, 00:30 am
I’m waiting you f’ng pathetic moronic imbecile.. I don’t need 10 original thoughts I just want ONE f’ng original thought… bring your f’ng ‘original thought” where the fck IS your original f’ng thought ?. you dumb imbecilic moronic stupefied impregnable dunce arse materialist idiot supreme…
19 Dec 2011, 00:31 am
Not a fkn thing, not one thing can they tell us. not a single goddamn thing.
style over substance, viva the fkn hippies hey. zilch, zero, nada.
19 Dec 2011, 00:34 am
you don’t know the beginning of who the fck you are.. not even a whisker of who the fck you are.. or where the fck you come from.. or where the fck you going to.. but you reckon you got some ‘original f’ng thoughts’ to impart you dumb fck imbecilic morose monstrous moegoe mongrel idiotic doos arse pseudo fckd up so called ‘scientist’..
19 Dec 2011, 00:36 am
oh ****** here he goes again, just tells us who we are then, come on, spit it out, let us all hear, inform the world, come on u dom dogmatically doosified tonsil, spit it out, tell us all who we are, as if u fkn know, come on, tell us, we all want to hear it.
19 Dec 2011, 00:38 am
the all-knowing all-confident bullshitter, lets hear it, just tell us ffs, stop beating round the bush, all this suspense is killing us, let the secret out the bag. do like the scientists make your knowledge public for everyone to test and validate for themselves, what u now censoring your knowledge, come on, this is obviously exceptionally insightful stuff u know – i mean your life hasnt been a total waste of time, lets hear it.
19 Dec 2011, 00:40 am
what this hippie would tell you is same as the original hippie might have told you… but you puffed up self aggrandized piece of moronic trash would’t know the beginning of what any hippie might have told you.. cos your stuffed up materialist ears are stopped up fast.. same way as your fckd up materialist eyes cannot see past your imbecilic blindness.. so whatever any hippie or any far thinking scientist might tell you.. you ain’t gonna hear it.. nor will you ever hope to see anything REAL.. because you are stuffed inside of your pseudo laboratory where you dunno even the beginning of how the experiment of seeing or hearing works … you dumb stupid deaf and blind moronic dead ended idiot materialist moron
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