If you are familiar with the NBA, you most definitely are acquitted with Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk Werner Nowitzki (born June 19, 1978) is a German professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was chosen as the ninth pick in the 1998 NBA draft. There are only two remaining players from the said draft.
The star has a number of accolades to his name. He won the Most Valuable Player several times and International Basketball Federation Europe Player of the Year. Dirk was the first non-American player to receive the Naismith Legacy Award which was awarded to him on December 10, 2012. He also is Maverick’s lead scorer.
He is currently the sixth highest scorer in NBA history having made more than 30,000 points through his 20-year career.
Dowry
Dirk Nowitzki made news when he married his Kenyan-Swedish fiancée in a Kenyan traditional wedding. The interracial couple tied the knot in 2012. Their differences are quite evident with Jessica coming from a Kenyan-Swedish background while Dirk is German. That is not the only difference, their height difference is awe-inspiring with Dirk a towering 7-foot figure and Jess a petite woman.
Their Kenyan wedding ceremony marked the start of a beautiful union. He had to pick out Jessica from a parade of girls all adorned in the same outfits. Dirk picked her out by her unique scent and height. He talks to the Undefeated about this.
“I guess it’s one of the traditions. If you get it wrong, you got to pay the parents a goat or something. I was lucky I smelled her to find the right one. But that was just an experience that I’ll never forget.”
This experience was also new to Jessica who was raised in Sweden. Olsson asked her husband to keep an open mind during the traditional wedding. Dirk obliged and had some fun at the party with some of the images showing him dancing in traditional regalia.
“Her mom threw a wedding party and that’s where some of those photos came from where I had the outfit on with a hat on,” Nowitzki, who loves Kenyan barbecue and stews, said. “It was a special experience. I’ve never, obviously, been a part of anything like that, the dances, the whole experience, the tradition of a wedding down there.
“It’s different. You have to cut a goat. Lots of symbols, all the different things. They really threw us a really traditional Kenyan wedding.”
Meeting
The couple met in 2010 at a charity event according to The Undefeated. The charity event for the Sports for Education and Economic Development (SEED) Project was on a snowy night in February 2010. It was NBA All-Star weekend in Dallas. The Senegal-based non-profit used basketball as a platform to engage youths in academic, athletic and leadership programs. Nowitzi got tricked into raising his hand during the auction, a move that saw him pay for the Ronaldo Diaz painting.
He agreed to go to two dates for charity. All this while, Norwitzi was thinking about going on a real date with a pretty woman he’d met that evening named Jessica Olsson. Jess is the daughter of a Kenyan mother and a Swedish father. Her mother comes from Nanyuki- a town located north-west of Mount Kenya. She, however, was raised in Sweden with her two younger twin brothers, Martin and Marcus who are both soccer players based in England. She currently works as the associate director of Dallas’ Goss-Michael Foundation Art Gallery.
Norwitzi, on the other hand, hails from a town in Germany called Würzburg that did not have many African or black residents. Their racial differences did not matter to the love-struck Norwitzi.
Asked what he loves about his wife, Dirk does not hesitate to state,“First, she’s got to be attractive. That’s obviously part of it. And I think we just clicked intellectually. She likes art, she likes sports, she grew up around sports. We both love tennis and we love to travel. We both love kids and family.”
The couple had their first appearance at the red carpet at The ESPYS awards causing a lot of attention. Most of the comments on Twitter came after he kissed her when he won an award during the televised show.
He says that he has not experienced any negative racial comments directed at them.
“Everybody that’s met my wife has said she’s great with me. So I haven’t heard any of that to my face. I’m sure there are some people that think of it to themselves,” he says.
Staying with his in-laws in Nanyuki
Dirk is quite familiar with the Kenyan lingua. He can pronounce words like cucu, nyama choma and poa perfectly. The 39-year-old star identifies with Kenya as his second home. He says that he does not need to announce that he is coming home where he makes a stop at least once a year.
Speaking to Lifestyle in Jo’burg, South Africa where he was attending the NBA game, Dirk said he’d passed by Nanyuki at his in-laws where he stayed for a week.
“We came to Kenya to see cucu,” he says pronouncing the Kikuyu name for grandmother perfectly.
“We just came straight from Kenya (to South Africa), my wife has a lot of family from there, uncles, aunts… we were there for over a week traveling.”
This time he did not get to travel as much as he would have loved to. He tries to do as much sightseeing as he can when he visits. Often, his visits are low-key. He explains that he tries to expose his children to ‘their heritage’ whether German, Swedish or Kenyan.
“Last year we were in Mombasa, we have been basically all over the place. I love the diverse nature that is in Kenya, be it in Nairobi or the Mount Kenya region which is very cold right now,” he says.
Asked if any of his three children, two boys, and one girl, has picked his love for the game, Dirk responds with the following.
“They are still young, the oldest just turned four but hopefully one day they will pick up a basketball and enjoy it. But I want them to grow up and make their own decisions. If they don’t like basketball, it is fine.”
His future in the NBA
Dirk recently signed a two-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks which will see him join Kobe Bryant as the only two stars who have played in the same team for two decades. When asked about when he plans to retire, Dirk has this to say, “I signed on for two more years this summer so we just wait and see how the season goes.”
“Last season for the first time, I almost missed two months with some Achilles problem and hopefully that is behind me and I can play some decent basketball. I am still having fun, hopefully, my body can hold up for a few more years and then it is time for the younger guys to take over,” he told the Lifestyle.
Basketball Clinic
Norwitzi joined a team of several other NBA players who came to Africa for a one-week basketball clinic that attracted over 80 boys and girls from the continent. The NBA stars comprised of two teams: Team Africa and Team World.
Team Africa, made up of players with African heritage, was captained by Luol Deng of the Los Angeles Lakers. Other members of this team included Serge Ibaka (Toronto Raptors), Emmanuel Mudiay (Denver Nuggets), Victor Oladipo (Indiana Pacers), Thabo Sefolosha (Utah Jazz), Bismack Biyombo (Orlando Magic), Clint Capela (Houston Rockets) and Dennis Schroder (Atlanta Hawks).
Team World, made up of players from the US and other countries had DeMarcus Cousins (New Orleans Pelicans), Andre Drummond (Detroit Pistons), Kristaps Porzingis (New York Knicks), Kemba Walker (Charlotte Hornets), Kyle Lowry (Toronto Raptors) and CJ McCollum (Portland Trail Blazers) with Norwitzi as the captain.
After the game, Norwitzi had this to say “First time I came in 2009, Gorgui Dieng (Senegalese professional basketball player for the Minnesota Timberwolves) was a participant and MVP of the program. I shook his hand and then I saw him in college and next thing he was in the NBA. This is a fantastic program and these kids get to learn a lot as they develop their shots, ball handling and understand the game.”
He is optimistic about basketball in Africa and had this to say, “Back in 2009, it was a lot smaller and we played outdoors and now there is a lot of hype around the game and camp and it is really encouraging. I hope some of these kids will get to go on, get an education and hopefully see them in the NBA.”