COLUMBIA – Laeticia Amihere can race with the best college athletes.
South Carolina sophomore Gamecocks has been running out of volunteer work on food campaigns in Columbia to help with the Transition homeless shelter.
She struggled with the choices and screens of the COVID-19 limitations to write Christmas letters to children at Children’s Hospital.
Amihere certainly takes teamwork seriously, as she showed when registering voters and leading social justice initiatives on campus.
The sophomore Canadian, 6-4, is also not a bad basketball player. She averages 6.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game for Gamecocks ranked 7th, heading to the opening of the SEC tournament on March 5 in Greenville.
But Amihere has an unusual heart for kindness and action.
These are some of the best college sports statistics in the state: Two full seasons in South Carolina, two times on the prestigious SEC Community Service Team, including the last tribute announced on February 24th.
“It’s a really cool award because it’s a service,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. “It is to serve other people, especially during a time when many people need help.”
Amihere is inspiring, personal, encouraging, enlightening, committed and can bury.
That’s right. She threw a basketball in a hoop at age 15. Soon after, the native of Mississauga, Ontario, located just outside Toronto, became one of the best candidates in the 2019 high school class.
The path of charity began much earlier.
‘I am called to lead’
Amihere’s father and mother, Anthony and Georgette Amihere, are from neighboring West African countries, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, respectively.
Helping is something of the Amihere family.
Georgette is the point guard.
Its list of assistants includes the organization of African cultural festivals within a diverse community of Mississauga, in which about half the population is non-white and 20% have ties to India. She is a teacher with special needs. She runs beauty contests for large women.
Thank you mother.
“When you grow up living this truth,” said Laeticia, “you want to model your life like that.”
Amihere, a graduate of King’s Christian Collegiate High School in Mississauga, said that faith is the other big part of her motivation.
“I’m just being a servant,” she said. “I was called to lead.”
Staley’s social justice efforts have made national news since the death of George Floyd while in the custody of the Minneapolis police last May. Amihere appreciates every word and she does her part.
Leading a campus-wide Zoom call on diversity was a step, lobbying the university to change some building names for another.
Basic awareness, Amihere said, is the key.
Laeticia Amihere, born with 6-4 people in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, just outside Toronto, came to South Carolina as one of the best female college basketball recruits in 2019. USC Athletics / Supplied
Christmas spirit
A statue of ex-Gamecocks star A’ja Wilson opened on campus in January. Another sign of progress is Amihere’s two-word response when asked whether there has been much counterattack against a black woman from Canada suggesting changes in an American institution.
“Not really,” she said.
Amihere is the first to say that she is not the only female basketball player in South Carolina interested in community service. It is a caring group.
But she is already looking forward to next Christmas and is figuring out how she can make things a little better for children in a hospital or adults in a homeless shelter.
“As I grew up, Christmas was so big for me,” she said. “My family has always been able to afford the biggest gift. There was always something to do and something to keep under the Christmas tree. Seeing how Christmas has shaped me and shaped my family, I know that many people do not have the opportunity to witness this.
“It is good to know that I helped a little.”
Add modesty to the long list of skills that Laeticia Amihere displays on and off the basketball court.
Follow Gene Sapakoff on Twitter @sapakoff