By: Mike Still (@mikestill94)
Feature photo: Lugumire in action last year against Oak Park.
Growing up, learning how to throw a football was the least of Richard Lugumire’s concerns.
Born in the Congo, he moved to Uganda with his mother as a refugee when he was four.
“My mom had to work hard,” Lugumire says.
“She didn’t have a proper job. She’d make food and go sell it on the streets so that we would get some of the money. We didn’t have house, we didn’t have electricity or anything like that.”
I remember some nights without eating. But as a young kid these were things that weren’t a big deal for me because all I did was play outside all day and come back home, then eat if there was food. I basically didn’t have a normal childhood like someone here would have, but I wasn’t worried, because I was only five, six or seven years old. As long as I was happy, nothing else really mattered to me.”
One thing that made Lugumire happy was being active. Soccer was the most popular sport in Africa and he took part. He was also an avid tree climber.
“We had a guava tree close to where I used to live,” he says happily. “Every now and then when there was nothing to eat I’d go up and eat some guavas and go back home.”
But seven years ago Lugumire’s world changed, as he moved to Canada. Living in a permanent residence, he took nothing for granted.
“For the first time, I would spend days on end without being dirty. In Africa I would always be looking at my hands because they’d be brown from touching dirty stuff. Here, my hands and clothes would be clean for days on end.”
Another discovery for Lugumire was football — a sport that would change his life in more than one way.
He first strapped on the pads at age 12 for the Valour Patriots as a running back. Blessed with tremendous speed, Lugumire thrived at the position. But as he entered his grade nine year at Sisler High School in 2017, he decided he wanted to play quarterback and be a leader for his team.
“After practice one day, I remember seeing the way the quarterback threw the ball. It was amazing and a perfect spiral and I said wow, I want to learn how to do that.”
I took the ball and threw it. It wasn’t pretty at all. And after I threw it I was like, I want to learn how to throw like that kid. That’s when I started taking football seriously.”
Lugumire’s work ethic and infectious personality immediately caught the eye of varsity co-head coach Sean Esselmont. At the conclusion of his freshman year in junior varsity and with a vacancy at the pivot position, Esselment felt the time was right to bring up the determined gunslinger.
“[Richard] always had that infectious personality where he laughs and is a person that you gravitate towards,” he says.
“He was under our radar right away. As soon as we put him under centre — and I’m the offensive coordinator — we never really wavered from him being our guy.”
Last season, Lugumire led the Spartans to a 4-3 record in an incredibly deep Division 1 and was also nominated for Rookie of the Year. But the season didn’t come without its trials.
“It was hard. As a person who’s just starting to play this position on a team that is expecting a lot from you, it was hard to deliver and deal with the drama when things didn’t go my way,” he says.
“These were older guys who were expecting more from me and when I didn’t provide it for them I didn’t know how to deal with it. That was the first time I experienced not feeling like I wasn’t good enough at everything I did.”
But his head coach saw things differently.
“There was a little bit of tribulations at first. He was dealing with kids that were older than him and had been around longer than him. But he never shied away from that. He’s like any high school kid but he’s found ways to cope and not get down on himself and rebound. His heart is undeniable.”
Lugumire has also had the privilege of developing under numerous mentors during his career as a pivot.
Last year, he took part in the Football Manitoba Prospects Program — going both ways as a quarterback and safety — and this offseason is a part of Team Manitoba’s U18 squad where well-respected Manitoba Bisons coach Ryan Karhut is the bench boss.
“As a new quarterback there were moments where I relied on my feet to make plays. That was the biggest thing that [Karhut] told me was to trust my arm and trust my reads and what I’d learned.”
Additionally, Lugumire has benefited from the support of the Rising Stars Foundation (RSF) , whose vision is “to help young people from all socio-economic backgrounds in Manitoba see that they can rise up and help make our community a better place.”
The RSF accomplish their vision in a number of different ways. Eric Vincent and John Kiesman, who help run the Prospects Program, also offer tutoring sessions an hour before the start of practice. The RSF’s scholarship and bursary fund also goes towards removing financial barriers for Winnipeg youth in high performance support. Since launching in February, they’ve handed out over $12,000 to deserving athletes and coaches.
“As an athlete we are all caught up in getting offers and performing great, but we also forget the important stuff which is doing well in school and the money,” Lugumire says.
“One thing I like about the Rising Stars is that it’s provided me with all of those things. I remember working with Coach Kiesman and I thought that was the end of it, but he started getting involved with my schooling and wanted to know how I did in class and if I attended school that day.
The foundation itself offered me a bursary and I was like, wow. These guys are really trying to help me out. For them, it’s about more than just the athlete. They also want to develop the person in you.”
While the financial support has meant a great deal to the young gunslinger, it has also been a weight off his mom’s shoulders.
“She knows I work hard, she’s seen me play and knows I’m passionate about the sport. She can’t do enough for me to continue to do what I love and it doesn’t feel to good to her, so getting this extra money from Rising Stars makes life much better for both of us.”
And in the long run, creating a stable future for his mother is what matters most to the grade 10 student.
“I’ve seen how hard she works. She’s been through a lot. I remember when I came here the first thing I wanted to do was buy her a house. I thought soccer could do that, but I realized it’s not going to take me anywhere if I’m not passionate about it. So when I found that passion for football and that it could take me somewhere it motivated me to be able to pay back my mom for everything she’s done for me.”