History & Records

Meet The Only Nigerian On The Forbes 30 List (Photos)

Published

8 years ago

January 6, 2017

Her name is Nneka Ogwumike born to Peter and Ify Ogwumike in Tornball, Texas, USA in 1990.

She is a basketball player and has been playing the position of power forward for the Los Angeles Sparks since they drafted her in 2012.

She is 6ft 2in and began her professional career in 2012 after first being drafted by the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). She has a younger sister (among her three siblings) – Chiney who is also a basketballer.

She started playing basketball since high school where she was at Cy-Fair School emerging as MVP after leading the team to the state championship.

She ended up choosing to go to Stanford University despite the fact that she had scholarship offers to Baylor, Duke, Connecticut, Tennessee and Notre Dame University too.

She went on to Stanford to break records, played with her younger sister and leave Stanford as the second all time leading scorer for the Women’s Basketball Program.

On leaving Stanford in 2012, She got drafted into Los Angeles Sparks where she won Rookie of the Month four times out of the five months of her rookie season.

She played for the US women U18, U19, World University Games, 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women in all of which the teams won gold medals.

She also played internationally during the off seasons in the US in 2012 and 2013 for CCC Polkowice, Poland and Dynamo Kursk, Russia from 2014 to 2016.

She has a Nike endorsement and has won 52 awards out of which the prominent ones are 2016 NBA Champion, 2016 WNBA MVP and 2012 Rookie of the Year.