Tony Nelson is a young, unassuming man. A basketball coach and staff of the Bayelsa State Sports Council, Tony is from Agbere in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state. For a young coach, Tony has won virtually everything basketball has to offer both locally and internationally but how did his journey to stardom start?
Tony was born in Warri but the family soon relocated to Lagos, where he attended Baptist Primary School, Apapa and Adebayo Mokuola College for his secondary education. In Lagos, the family moved from Okokomaiko area to Suru Lere, a middle class suburb. Incidentally, there was a basketball court in the neighbourhood and the young Tony joined other kids to practice. That was how he developed interest in basketball.
He played basketball for his college team. He joined a basketball academy -- Sea Rovers Academy-- to hone his basketball skills. The young Tony took his interest in basketball to the next level when he enrolled for a coaching course at the National Institute for Sports (NIS), Lagos.
After acquiring the coaching certificate, he opted to relocate to Bayelsa to contribute his quota to the development of basketball in his home state. On arrival in Yenagoa, Tony established the Patriots Basketball Academy, where he teaches young boys and girls basic basketball skills.
Tony is a young but highly experienced coach. He was one-time assistant coach of MFM female basketball team; one-time coach of Sea Rovers Basketball Club and presently coach of Patriot Basketball Academy; coach of Niger Delta University basketball team as well as Head coach of the Bayelsa State Basketball Association. In addition, he is coach of the state-owned basketball team, the Blue Whales; St. Jude's Girls Secondary School and the National junior basketball team coach.
How did he become coach of St. Judes Girls Secondary School, Amarata, Yenagoa, which has won him most of his laurels? This was what he had to say: "I started coaching St. Jude's Girls when a youth corper posted to St Judes, named Josephine, approached me that some officials brought Nestle Milo All Secondary Schools Basketball Competition form to their school and she needed me to assist in grooming the girls. That was how I started coaching the school team. This was just two weeks to the competition in 2010.
That year Tony returned from the competition empty-handed but he bounced back two years later in 2012, when he led St. Jude's Girls Secondary School to win the Nestle Milo Secondary Schools basketball championship in Lagos. He followed it up with wins in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018 and in 2019. He repeated the feat in 2022, this time with two teams -- St. Jude's Girls and Bishop Dimeari Grammar School, Ovom, making Bayelsa the first state in the country to win both the male and female categories of the Milo basketball championship in the same year! In all, he has won the Milo competition seven times with St. Judes and ones with BDGS. He has also come 2nd twice and 3rd ones.
Tony equally led the state female basketball team to a gold medal finish at the 2012 National Sports Festival (NSF) in Port Harcourt; gold medal at the National Youth Games in 2017; silver in 2018 and another gold medal in 2019. He won gold medal at the South South Youth Alive Basketball Championship in 2019 and was one of the coaches that led the national Under-16 basketball team to a bronze medal finish at the FIBA African Basketball Championship in 2019.
In 2021, Tony led MFM basketball team to second position in the Zenith Bank Female Premier League before picking up a gold medal at the 2021 National Youth Games. He was a back to back finalist at the National Sports Festival, winning silver at Edo 2021 and gold in 2022 at Asaba.
When St. Jude's Girls Secondary School and Bishop Dimeari Grammar School won the Nestle Milo basketball competition in 2022, it qualified both teams to represent Nigeria at the International Schools Sports Federation (ISSF)-organised basketball championship in Belgrade, Serbia. Tony, along with an assistant, led both teams to Serbia and at the end of the global competition, BDGS came 3rd while St. Jude's Girls Secondary School was placed 5th over-all.
Only recently, Tony was in Bahrain in far away Asia for the ISSF Gymnasiad. The Gymnasiad is a multi-sports Games like the Olympics. More than 160 schools, including St. Jude's Girls Secondary School, were in attendance. Tony guided St. Jude's Girls basketball team through the group stages. The girls defeated Romania 20--8 in the quarter-final, dispatched Thailand 18--6 in the semi-final before losing to Slovenia in the final of the basketball event of the 2024 ISSF Gymnasiad, thus returning home with a silver medal.
Tony, who attributes his success to the grace of God, said apart from his on-court achievements, his other joy is seeing his players making headway in their basketball career.
According to him, "I have quite a number of my former players schooling and playing professional basketball abroad. One is in Japan, one in Spain, two in Portugal and a good number in the USA. I also have some in the national team. There are three in the national Under-18 team that went to South Africa to qualify for the Junior World Cup coming up next year".
As Tony fixes his gaze on winning more laurels in the years to come, one can only wish him the very best.
