Despite dark past in Rwanda, student makes light through football, education

Jean-Luc Nshimiyimana left the war-stricken Rwanda when he was 8.

No offense to Don Cheadle, but forget everything you saw in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda. University of Texas at Arlington senior Jean-Luc Nshimiyimana is the epitome of what Hotel Rwanda is really about.

Nshimiyimana was born in Rwanda. His father worked for the government in Rwanda. In 1997, his father was assassinated. 

 Nshimiyimana said the movie's representation of the war is weak.

“Back in 1992-93, before the war, it was a beautiful country,” he said. “We had plantations, good agriculture. Back in that time it was peaceful and everything was so nice. And then the war came. It’s nothing like the movie.”

Nshimiyimana said the war was between Tutsi and the Hutu tribes.

Amidst the war and the assassination of his father, Nshimiyimana played soccer as a pastime and a way to ignore the chaos around him. He started playing when he was 7. He played for his first soccer club in the eighth grade.

Nshimiyimana and his family moved to America Sept. 20, 2005. He played soccer till the end of his sophomore year.

He never knew what American football was till he started attending the home games at Abilene Christian high school. He thought the games were comical, how players hardly used their feet even though it’s called football.

“I saw how it was very animated,” he said. “The physique and the hitting and everything, I was like ‘OK, I got to try this for myself one day.’” 

Nshimiyimana tried out for the team during the off season. He said the workouts were like being in a militia. He made the team as a wide receiver.

“I sat down for almost a week, wishing I never joined the team,” he said. “For the first practice of the off season, I didn’t go to school for the next three days. I was so sore; I couldn’t feel any part of my body.”

While Nshimiyimana was getting adjusted to the American sport, his mother almost took him out it.

“She didn’t like it,” he said. “When she went to the first game, she actually tried to pull me off the team the same day she went to the first game. But after a while, she got used to it.”

For the short time that Nshimiyimana was playing football, he was getting letters from universities. The college he wanted to go to was the University of Texas at Austin. That dream never became a reality after he broke his ankle during a volleyball game his senior year.

“I jumped so I could spike the ball, and when I landed, I twisted my ankle and it cracked,” he said. That was the end of sports for me. I got letters from Alabama, Oklahoma but that was too far from home for me. I was looking forward to UT Austin.”

Nshimiyimana hasn’t visited Rwanda in 14 years. He and his family have planned a visit. He said the politics of his country are the main reasons of him not returning.

“I will go back once the system changes,” he said.

Nshimiyimana’s last football game was in 2007. And while he didn’t last long in the sport, the memories last forever.

“Playing receiver there was [phew]… it makes me feel like a king,” he said.