{"id":86168,"date":"2020-10-09T22:10:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T19:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/for-black-rugby-player-a-covid-19-victory-and-loss\/"},"modified":"2020-10-09T22:10:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T19:10:12","slug":"for-black-rugby-player-a-covid-19-victory-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/for-black-rugby-player-a-covid-19-victory-and-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"#For Black rugby player, a COVID-19 victory \u2014 and loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#For Black rugby player, a COVID-19 victory \u2014 and loss<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Oct 9 \u2013 On Broadhurst Cona\u2019s fifth night in the COVID-19 ward of Cape Town\u2019s Groote Schuur Hospital, the patient in the bed next to him was giving up.<\/p>\n

The man gripped his own throat in panic as he choked, and he kept pulling off his oxygen mask. Cona pleaded with him to put it back on, but the man was beyond listening.<\/p>\n

Early the next morning, Cona awoke to a commotion. The man\u2019s bed was empty, and nurses in protective clothing were spraying it down with disinfectant. He was sealed in a beige-colored body bag, and it took four people to lift him away to a passage leading to the lift.<\/p>\n

Cona didn\u2019t know it yet, because his companion had been too sick to speak and his face unrecognizable with pain, but he had seen this man many times before, as an opponent on the rugby field.<\/p>\n

The two had played in rival Black neighborhood teams under apartheid\u2019s racial segregation laws in the late 1960s. Cona had gone on to compete in international game<\/a>s with South Africa\u2019s Blacks-only team over the following decade. He played against England, France and New Zealand\u2019s vaunted national team, and also toured Italy.<\/p>\n

He was competing in a sport that, to many, had become a symbol of Afrikaner domination of the country\u2019s majority Blacks, but it was a game that his broad body and determination were made for.<\/p>\n

The dead man, Phakamile Maqhasho, had never made it beyond provincial rugby, but the two had kept in touch. Cona had last seen him at the funeral of a mutual rugby friend four years back. Cona only realized it was him in the bed next to him when a friend sent him a copy of his obituary in a local Xhosa-language community paper some days later.<\/p>\n

Now Maqhasho\u2019s funeral would be next, and Cona felt like he had witnessed what his own death from COVID-19 might be like. Would he ever again see his daughter and especially his son, who lived on the other side of the country?<\/p>\n

\u201cI could be next,\u201d he thought to himself, and sure enough, within 24 hours, the 72-year-old\u2019s own condition had dramatically worsened, and he was gasping for breath.<\/p>\n

For decades, he had survived all the indignities that South Africa\u2019s apartheid system could throw at a Black man: the bulldozing of his childhood home; his move to a Black township; a racist law that forbade him from playing rugby on South Africa\u2019s all-white national team, the Springboks, despite his talent.<\/p>\n

Wheezing in his hospital bed, Cona made a vow. \u201cI can\u2019t have come this far to be killed by a virus. There\u2019s no glory if I die in my sleep,\u201d he would later recount. \u201cLet me die fighting, on my feet, rather than in my bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, after barely four hours of sleep, Cona got up and started doing vigorous exercise: push-ups, chin-ups, jogging around the ward, even shadow boxing \u2013 with the novel coronavirus as his invisible opponent. His body was heavy as lead and his chest felt like it was about to explode with pain, but he just kept on training.<\/p>\n

The nurses urged him to rest, lest he injure himself falling, and he politely declined.<\/p>\n

He was going to fight this one out.<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player Broadhurst Cona walks through the garden of the only two remaining houses in the community from which he was removed under apartheid, in Simon\u2019s Town, near Cape Town.<\/span>Reuters <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UPROOTED<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cona had discovered rugby by accident, after the South African government bulldozed his family home.<\/p>\n

He was 6 months old when, in May 1948, the Afrikaner Nationalist Party representing the descendants of Dutch settlers came to power \u2013 and set about implementing its vision of an apartheid state, solidifying decades of racially discriminatory policies introduced by South Africa\u2019s British former colonial masters.<\/p>\n

Two years later, the government passed what would be one of the most hated laws of the era: the Group Areas Act, which sought to keep the races apart by demarcating neighborhoods where each was allowed to live.<\/p>\n

They grabbed all the best neighborhoods for the white minority, forcibly relocating Black and colored \u2013 as mixed-race citizens are called here \u2013 people into less desirable areas. Cona was a teenager when his family, who lived in picturesque seaside Simon\u2019s Town, were uprooted to the township of Gugulethu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still say that was the most heinous legislation of the apartheid era. Because it destroyed the fiber of the community,\u201d Cona told Reuters at his daughter Kholiswa\u2019s house in the Black township of Langa, whose neat rows of bungalows built by the apartheid regime are now painted in riotous colors that previously were forbidden.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the forced relocation set him on a path that would become his life\u2019s passion. There was no rugby team in Simon\u2019s Town, and Cona had only ever played soccer, which has always been the more popular sport with the country\u2019s Black majority.<\/p>\n

When he was 22, he joined a soccer team in Gugulethu. In one match, he played against a team whose players included Norman Mbiko, who also happ<\/a>ened to be a coach of a rugby team, the Flying Eagles, in the nearby township of Nyanga. Mbiko would later recall noticing the stocky player who combined a blistering pace with a Herculean upper-body strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see he\u2019d be good at rugby,\u201d Mbiko told Reuters in an interview at his spotless red-brick home, whose wood-paneled interior was adorned with team photos and news<\/a>paper cuttings featuring him from his rugby days. \u201cHe was so fast for his big size.\u201d<\/p>\n

So in 1969, Mbiko and another sports friend persuaded Cona to start playing rugby. Within a year, Cona had established himself as a powerful tighthead prop \u2013 one of the two positions in the front row of the scrum that are usually reserved for the team\u2019s heaviest players \u2013 and rose up to play for the racially segregated Black Western Province team.<\/p>\n

Resources were scant. The pitch was mostly dirt, and they had none of the facilities the white clubs enjoyed, such as gyms or scrummaging machines. There was no changing room at Nyanga; they suited up in the open.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, in 1972 Cona and Mbiko were selected for the national Black rugby squad, the Leopards, with Mbiko as captain. Cona became known in rugby circles as \u201cBroadness,\u201d part wordplay on his size, part the result of a misprint on his \u201cdompas\u201d \u2013 the passes Blacks were required to carry every time they entered a white area.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until 28 years later, long after they\u2019d both retired and six years after South Africa had transitioned to democracy with a historic election that brought Nelson Mandela to power, that their contribution to the sport would finally be recognized.<\/p>\n

In 2000, the two men received the thing they long had been denied during the apartheid era: the coveted green and gold blazers of the team that had for decades been the realm of white players alone, the Springboks. Balfour Ngconde, the sports minister under Mandela who had fought for the belated honor, bestowed the blazers on the men.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so excited. We had always been yearning to be on one platform, not separate ones,\u201d Cona said. But it was tinged with bitterness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we were mingling afterwards, some of the guys said, \u2018It\u2019s only a blazer, it\u2019s meaningless.\u2019 And we all agreed. Because the whites who played are well-off now, but we had nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player Broadhurst Cona goes through his training moves as he visits the stadium where he began his career in Gugulethu township in Cape Town, South Africa.<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\u201cI WAS DENIED AN OPPORTUNITY\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a bright day in September, Cona surveyed the grounds of his old club in Nyanga, just down the road from Mbiko\u2019s house. He picked up a rugby ball and jogged around the muddy, balding pitch practicing some dummy passes, his cropped white hair flashing in the sun. He somehow managed not to sully his immaculate black leather shoes and dark suit trousers.<\/p>\n

His big frame had put on weight around the middle, but he was clearly still fighting fit.<\/p>\n

Mphakamisi Zali, 24, who plays for the club, joined his longtime hero, and they passed the ball between them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have a legend like him back on our pitch,\u201d Zali said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he ever got the recognition he deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black South Africans\u2019 relationship with rugby has long been fraught. Such was the resentment of the country\u2019s white rugby establishment, township crowds would cheer the Springboks\u2019 opponents \u2013 \u201cwe wanted anyone but them to win,\u201d Cona said. A spokesman for SA Rugby, the sport\u2019s current governing body, declined to comment on its apartheid-era predecessor.<\/p>\n

When Cona was playing back in the 1970s and early 1980s, tour cancellations and international boycotts of the racially segregated South African teams were mounting. Back home, anti-apartheid protests were erupting across the country.<\/p>\n

Morne du Plessis, a Springbok star from that era who would later play with Cona in a veterans team after apartheid ended, gives an idea of the conflicted feelings of some players at that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the pinnacle of your rugby achievement, to be a Springbok, albeit in a divided country,\u201d Du Plessis, who was captain of the national team, told Reuters by telephone.<\/p>\n

As international protests gathered steam, he said many players were forced to reflect on the system in which they had been indoctrinated. \u201cFor many of us, it was a realization that this couldn\u2019t go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an effort to placate public opinion, the rugby board that governed the players started making small concessions to non-racial sport.<\/p>\n

In 1976, it created a mixed team \u2013 not the official one \u2013 to play the visiting New Zealand team in Cape Town. Cona participated.<\/p>\n

He shared a hotel room with two of his white teammates, Springbok stars Moaner van Heerden and Richard Prentis. Cona remembers that they joked and laughed like equals, and talked endlessly of their passion: rugby.<\/p>\n

Though they set aside racial tensions, Cona had started to develop a budding resentment of how apartheid had consistently denied him the opportunities his white colleagues had had.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the same story every time. I was denied an opportunity,\u201d he said of being unable to play for the Springboks. \u201cI\u2019m not saying I\u2019m a superstar, but when I watch the rugby now, I can see I\u2019m better than some of the guys who are being selected in my position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such was the case with all sports, but in rugby the discrimination was worsened by the absurd perception of rugby as a \u201cwhite\u201d sport, said Hendrik Snyders, a sports historian at the National Museum in Bloemfontein.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reality, the game in Black communities \u2013 both African and colored \u2013 dates back to the late 1890s,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole line of very able players like Broadness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player Broadhurst Cona looks through fading clippings and photos at his friend and former teammate Norman Mbiko\u2019s home in Gugulethu township in Cape Town, South Africa.<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI CRIED THE WHOLE NIGHT\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa has suffered, so far, the worst COVID-19 pandemic in Africa \u2013 with more than 685,000 cases and over 17,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

The virus brought the country\u2019s lingering problems into sharp relief: The extreme inequalities in economic opportunity established under apartheid have actually worsened in the quarter-century since it ended, according to International Monetary Fund data. Healthcare is a stark lottery in South Africa, with a world-class private system for those who can afford it, and an overburdened public one for the mostly Black citizens who cannot.<\/p>\n

Cona\u2019s friends and family persuaded him to go to hospital to get a COVID-19 test on May 15, 2020, when Cape Town was at the heart of South Africa\u2019s epidemic.<\/p>\n

He was ill, he couldn\u2019t eat, and he struggled to walk. His daughter, Kholiswa, and a friend of his took him to a health center in the friend\u2019s car, where he tested negative, but his breathing was bad and he had pre-existing high blood pressure. They referred him to another clinic for a second test the following day.<\/p>\n

The night he tested positive, Cona was transferred to Groote Schuur Hospital, one of South Africa\u2019s best public hospitals, which in 1967 had completed the world\u2019s first human-to-human heart transplant. Though the hospital was under strain with COVID-19 cases at the time, it was coping better than many public hospitals at the epidemic\u2019s peak.<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player Broadhurst Cona visits the stadium where he began his career in Gugulethu township in Cape Town, South Africa.<\/span>Reuters <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Kholiswa got the news of her father\u2019s result, she called her older brother, Morgan, who had moved to Queenstown in South Africa\u2019s Eastern Cape province, and they ruminated on the worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried the whole night. He\u2019s 73, it was the time when everybody was going to hospital, it was the peak,\u201d Kholiswa said. \u201cHe\u2019s got an underlying condition. The elderly were dying. I thought, \u2018No, he\u2019s gone.’\u201d<\/p>\n

But Cona wasn\u2019t giving up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the nurse: \u2018All these years I\u2019ve been playing rugby and people were tackling me, and often I didn\u2019t fall. No one is tackling me now: I am NOT going to fall.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, after days of forcing himself out of his hospital bed on his training regime, Cona started to feel better around the start of June. He could feel the oxygen returning to his lungs, and he felt fitter and more vital. Three weeks after being admitted, a fully recovered Cona went for a last medical exam before being transferred to a quarantine facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a fighter,\u201d the doctor examining him said.<\/p>\n

The day after he arrived at his quarantine hotel, he got a pleasant surprise: Morgan had travel<\/a>ed from Queenstown with his wife, Joyce, and Kholiswa to welcome him out. They weren\u2019t allowed in, but Cona\u2019s balcony had a view of the parking lot next to the hotel beach, and he could see Morgan and wave while talking to him on his phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are very lucky to see me, because there are no visitors,\u201d he told Morgan. \u201cI\u2019m very happy about that,\u201d came the reply down the phone line.<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player and coronavirus disease (COVID-19) survivor Broadhurst Cona walks along a beach once reserved for white people under apartheid, in Simon\u2019s Town, near Cape Town, South Africa.<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

INVICTUS<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a recent day, Cona went for a visit at Mbiko\u2019s house. Age has taken its toll on the 75-year-old. He has Parkinson\u2019s and needs a walker to move around, but he\u2019s still proudly wearing a Springbok jersey. They remain close friends.<\/p>\n

Mbiko had made quite a career for himself as a coach after retiring, including on the coaching team for the legendary 1995 Rugby World Cup. South Africa won the cup at home, in front of a huge crowd of Black and white South Africans, all screaming for the Springboks. Du Plessis, by then retired from playing, was the manager.<\/p>\n

In the game, celebrated in the 2009 movie \u201cInvictus,\u201d starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, the Springboks overcame seemingly impossible odds in beating the world-leading New Zealand team.<\/p>\n

In what was widely seen as one of Mandela\u2019s most unifying gestures after being elected president a year earlier, at the game he donned the Springbok jersey, which until then had been associated among Blacks with apartheid oppressors who\u2019d imprisoned him for 27 years.<\/p>\n

The team had only one non-white player, Chester Williams.<\/p>\n

Cona and his rugby friends watched the game live on TV at Mbiko\u2019s house, a part of which doubles up as a tavern. Cona remembers most people initially cheering for the New Zealand team, but at some point the camera cut to Mandela in his green jersey. Someone said, \u201cHey, let\u2019s do it for the old man,\u201d he recalled, and within minutes the whole tavern was unanimously behind the Springboks.<\/p>\n

For then-Springbok captain Francois Pienaar, it wasn\u2019t until the game was over that he realized the significance of the victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was insane,\u201d he told Reuters in a phone interview. \u201cWe didn\u2019t realize the impact it would have. Twenty-five years later, I still think to myself how lucky we were \u2026 to unify our country like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a brief honeymoon period following the World Cup final, disillusionment swiftly set in among Cape Town\u2019s Black rugby players. Decades of apartheid-era neglect was going to take a lot of money to fix, and the government had other priorities besides rugby.<\/p>\n

In an effort to reverse segregation, teams from Black townships were required to play teams in richer, mostly white areas, and vice versa. But they had no resources to compete \u2013 they were still practicing on poor fields with no equipment.<\/p>\n

Pienaar said the euphoria in the wake of the World Cup win \u201cput too much pressure\u201d on South Africa to quickly fix its entrenched problems.<\/p>\n

Most of the players couldn\u2019t even afford the bus fares to travel to these faraway stadiums, Cona said. Although rugby, like life, in South Africa was no longer legally segregated, most urban Blacks remained too poor to live anywhere else but in their townships. All the best Black talent swiftly abandoned the township teams to join the better-resourced clubs. Within a few years, most of the clubs that had first stoked Cona\u2019s passion for the sport had either collapsed or been merged into one megaclub.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expected in our townships we would have the same facilities like those in the white areas, but that never happened,\u201d Cona said. \u201cOur fields are still the same fields like before the unity. We knew it wouldn\u2019t be overnight, but it\u2019s been years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Colquhoun, spokesman for SA Rugby, said, \u201cWe have learnt that the idea of any South African sporting federation being able to create a mass-participation project that reaches every community is impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIt\u2019s a sad fact that only a minority of South Africa\u2019s 25,000 schools provide any kind of sport to their learners, and we know that Springboks are made in schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed with pride to the grass-roots program called Get Into Rugby, but added: \u201cWith 170,000 children participating in a normal year, we know it is just scratching the surface. But we\u2019d need hundreds of millions of rands to reach everyone,\u201d compared with a current outlay of more than 50 million rand ($3 million) a year.<\/p>\n

Last year, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup final for a third time, with its first Black captain, Siya Kolisi \u2013 who grew up in a township near Port Elizabeth and often went to bed hungry as a child \u2013 receiving the trophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are things you never thought you would see in South Africa,\u201d Cona said. \u201cWe were so excited; it tells us we are heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, full integration in rugby, as in society as a whole, remains mostly an aspiration. The country is three-quarters Black and nearly 10% colored, but just 11 non-white players were part of the 31-man squad in the World Cup tournament.<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former rugby player Broadhurst Cona and his former teammate Norman Mbiko look through fading clippings and photos at Mbiko\u2019s home in Gugulethu township in Cape Town, South Africa.<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A BATTLE LOST<\/strong><\/p>\n

On June 13, a Saturday, Cona arrived home to Gugulethu to a hero\u2019s welcome, organized by his local walkers\u2019 club. He was overjoyed. After the celebrations, at 9 p.m. that evening, his son, Morgan called: He\u2019d just tested positive for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Like his father, Morgan had high blood pressure, but Cona wasn\u2019t worried: If an old man like him could survive, his son should be fine. The clinic had even sent him home to self-isolate, concluding that his case was mild.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Cona phoned him back. Morgan\u2019s wife, Joyce, picked up the phone and said he was too ill to come to the phone.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Morgan phoned Cona to say he was getting worse. He sounded awful: He was struggling to breathe and suffering headaches. Later, Joyce called to say Morgan had been admitted to a private hospital in Queenstown, as a precaution, although his temperature was back to normal and he seemed on the path to recovery.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning at 4:45 a.m., Cona was at Kholiswa\u2019s house when Joyce called Kholiswa\u2019s mobile. Cona approached, anxious for news on Morgan. \u201cI knew something was wrong. Joyce was crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seconds passed before Joyce delivered the news: Morgan had died overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the sad part,\u201d he said. He moved his gaze to the window and didn\u2019t speak for a long moment.<\/p>\n

Then, finally, he said: \u201cMorgan was so worried about me when I was in the hospital. But in the end, I was fine. I won the battle.\u201d Another pause. \u201cHe didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"South
South Africa\u2019s Siya Kolisi (C) celebrates with the Webb Ellis trophy after winning the World Cup Final.<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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“#For Black rugby player, a COVID-19 victory \u2014 and loss” CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Oct 9 \u2013 On Broadhurst Cona\u2019s fifth night in the COVID-19 ward of Cape Town\u2019s Groote Schuur Hospital, the patient in the bed next to him was giving up. The man gripped his own throat in panic as he choked, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/10\/rugby-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[75041,1545,72602],"class_list":["post-86168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-10-9-20","tag-coronavirus","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}