KNYSNA NEWS - Buhle Gogwana, an 18-year-old hockey player at Knysna High School, is "on beast mode" and smashing her way up to Europe after being invited to represent South Africa in Holland later this year.
The determined young player will be showing what she's made of in September as part of the Elsie Coetzer Hockey School (ECHS) tour to the Netherlands, facilitated by school tour operator Travel and Sport.
Buhle, who has played netball "all her life", decided to try out hockey after her friends suggested they play the sport and as fate would have it, "I fell in love," she says. She is currently doing her matric and said she is still finding her balance between focusing on her studies and honing her hockey skills.
Giving her best
The teenager says she has received a lot of scorn from peers who refuse to understand why she plays the sport, but that she has decided to invest all her energy in pushing herself to always give her best in every single match. The excited Buhle believes the opportunity to play in Holland will broaden her understanding of the sport as she will see how other countries play and this might polish her skills when she plays varsity hockey.
She says her mother was initially sceptical about her choice of sport, but after seeing how resolved she is, her mother has been rooting for her. "In fact, my family has been the force behind me and my biggest supporters, we feed off each other's energies," she says.
'Hard work, grit, determination'
Her role model, she reveals, is a hockey player from England, Mandy Hinch, with whom she resonates because she also got into the sport by first "trying it out"."Then boom, we're in so deep," she chuckles.
"I love how Mandy plays and she always says, 'No matter what your circumstances, all you need is hard work, grit and determination.
If you have these three you have everything,' and I live by these words."
In fact, she says, if any of the younger hockey players who she sometimes helps coach at her school were to take anything from her, "that would be it" and that they must never be discouraged by their peers.
She adds, "I get that hockey is not a popular sport and it's barely televised, but if they love the sport they should never be derailed by that… If anything, they must be on beast mode in every match!"
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