Ubuntu philosophy lives on with Clippers – Los Angeles Clippers Blog – ESPN Los Angeles.
We lost one of the great leader’s in our world yesterday, Nelson Mandela. His philosophy of “Ubuntu” is still used by Clippers coach Doc Rivers.
“No one in the locker room had ever met Mandela but their connection to him and his teachings grew in training camp when Kita “Thierry” Matungulu joined the Clippers coaching staff for a month, as he had done when Doc Rivers was with the Boston Celtics.
In 2002, Rivers was at a fundraising event in New York when he was sitting at a table with Matungulu, who helped found Hoops 4 Hope, a South African basketball organization that helps teach kids about sports and life skills. During the conversation, he told Rivers about Ubuntu.
Matungulu has spoken to Rivers’ teams for the past 10 seasons and spent training camp with the Clippers in October.
Ubuntu, according to Mandela, doesn’t have a singular meaning, but is a word that embodies respect, unselfishness, sharing and community, among other things. It’s an unspoken bond and understanding among people.
When Mandela died on Thursday, Matungulu reached out to Rivers, and many of his messages to the team, inspired by Mandela, once again resonated with the players in the locker room.
“He’s the guy that introduced Umbutu to me, and that’s the term that I use,” Rivers said. “Kita’s in South Africa, and he sent me a long email today and so we were conversing. … It’s important for our players to know who [Mandela] was. He may be the important figure in our lifetime that I can think of as far as making world change.”