LONG READ Haashim Pead exclusive: 'I want to start my own foundation like Siya Kolisi'

Nestled on the slopes of Cape Town’s Signal Hill, the Bo-Kaap neighbourhood is a kaleidoscope of colour and culture. Its cobbled streets are lined with houses painted bright, vivid hues. Once home to freed slaves from Southeast Asia, the Cape Malay residents have preserved their custom for centuries. The music is powerful. The convivial corner stores and street food are the stuff of culinary legend and, for better or worse, the dazzling properties highly Instagrammed in the social media age.

At the most recent count, only around 3,200 souls live in the Bo-Kaap. Most are Muslim; all are immensely proud of their patch and those who represent it.

When Haashim Pead returned from Italy with a gold medal around his neck, player of the U20s World Championship in an astonishing Junior Springboks side, it felt like the entirety of Bo-Kaap welcomed the boy home. Music played, food sizzled and emotions ran forth.

For on these hillsides, one of rugby’s brightest talents learned the game. A swashbuckling, hot-stepping scrum-half who has announced himself to the world, and is the talk of South African rugby. Jay-Z’s Roc Nation behemoth added him to their stable last month at just 20 years old, uncapped, with barely 200 minutes of senior rugby and zero URC starts. His story, as much as his copious talent, will have played a part in their decision, rooted as it is in the Bo-Kaap and its people.

“Growing up was so easy because you could go anywhere in the Bo-Kaap and everyone would know you, there was always an open invitation to go into anyone’s house,” Pead says. “I could go out at 10am and only come back at 6pm but my parents would know I was safe. It’s a very close-knit community. We all go to the mosque together; we invite each other over to break our fast together during the holy month of Ramadan.

 

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“Behind my house there’s a park, and by my grandma’s house there is another I used to go to after school. When the parks were full, we would just play touch rugby in the street. When you sidestep step on the tarmac, your shoes break on the inside so my parents would always complain. After three days, my shoes would be broken. It was lovely. I wish I could go back to relive those moments.

“Growing up in the Bo-Kaap was key in my development to becoming a sportsman. There is a lot of talent in the community, it’s just unfortunate not everyone was as exposed as I was.”

This is what Pead really wants to talk about. His passion for home and his yearning to help it. Now he has the resources to make it happen. Roc Nation thundered into rugby seven years ago promising to shake up the game and drive its athletes into new realms of public consciousness. Michael Yormark, the company’s president and chief of branding and strategy, has been its mouthpiece, though he now has healthy competition in the form of Eddie Hearn. Roc Nation have their sceptics, but Yormark has signed Siya Kolisi, Cheslin Kolbe, Ellis Genge and Ardie Savea to a heavyweight client roster. He talks long and loud about the need to build stars and tell stories if rugby is ever to become truly transcendent.

Recently, Pead and Yormark met in the plush Roc Nation offices. The agent asked Pead how he wanted to build his currency. Pead’s mind fixed immediately on the Bo-Kaap.

“It was all about, yes, I want to grow my profile but how can I do so starting locally, giving back to the people who helped me, then taking it a step further.

I want to start my own foundation, not just for my community but other struggling communities within the Western Cape. Those are my goals.

“I want to do things I wasn’t afforded. When I was a kid, there weren’t these types of opportunities or things weren’t really given to us. That’s the way Siya started with his foundation. He got some boots from Adidas and took them to the Zwide township where he is from.

“I met Siya one day at the Roc Nation offices, he told me to do the same thing he did – ask Adidas and Michael to help me, get 50 pairs of boots and take them to the schools or the rugby clubs in the Bo-Kaap.

“I want to start my own foundation, not just for my community but other struggling communities within the Western Cape. Those are my goals. Roc Nation 100% back and support me. The players they have taken like Siya, Cheslin Koble, Aphelele Fassi – we all have a great story so the world can know who we are.”

Pead is at pains to acknowledge those who helped him get a foothold on the fraught rugby ladder. He ponders aloud, several times, how many would-be Springboks are simply never discovered because there is no sporting infrastructure in their communities.

Pead was steeped in rugby from the beginning. His dad, ‘Migo’, captained the local club Schotsche Kloof Walmer RFC. Uncle Naanie went further still, wearing the Western Province jersey at Currie Cup level.

Pead was spotted playing touch by Murray Ingram, founder of the Connect Performance Academy which provides opportunities for youngsters across the Cape. Stormers wing Seabelo Senatla is a huge backer. Pead was 12 before he played a single full-contact match. At his first tackle tournament, the Connect boys were pitched in against the moneyed juggernauts of the school scene. It was David and Goliath stuff, but since Pead had never heard of Paarl Gym, Paul Roos and the like, their reputation meant nothing. Pead won two man of the match awards and his skillset turned influential heads.

“A week later I get home from school and my dad is on a call with the guy in charge of sports at Bishop’s College. Me being that young, I didn’t know of Bishop’s, only the community high schools around me. My dad tells me there’s an opportunity to go to Bishop’s. I asked him, ‘What’s Bishops? Where is it? Who are they?’

“That Saturday they played their derby against Rondebosch, which was televised. My dad said, ‘watch the TV and you will see’. Two weeks later I went for an interview, they showed me around, asked me a couple of questions and they took things on themselves.”

This is the alma mater of Robbie Fleck, Ross Vintcent, Nizaam Carr and one Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu. Pead had not yet entered his teens when he took up a scholarship and the palatial surrounds of Bishop’s made him uneasy.

“For anyone who comes out of a community like I did and goes into this type of school, you don’t want to be the odd one out. You feel like you’re alone.

“I thought I always needed to fit in. I was trying to be like them, do the things they do. After the second or third month I thought, ‘I am never going to have the things they have or do the things they do.’ I didn’t realise it but the people around me, the friends I made at Bishop’s, just wanted me to be myself. They were very welcoming, invited me over to their houses and eventually it became a heck of a lot easier.”

People are like, ‘let’s just throw an 18-year-old into the URC’. Obviously it’s really nice for him to get that exposure but it’s also really difficult to adapt to a completely different game.

It wasn’t until his penultimate year of high school that rugby calcified into a career he could grasp. Pead’s U16 coach told him pointedly it was up to him to make use of his striking ability. ‘Migo’ went further still.

“My dad told me I have the talent, but I can’t have that talent and not do anything with it.”

Before long, Pead was starting at Craven Week, the ultimate proving ground for the cream of age-grade rugby, impressing for SA Schools then tearing up the sun-blistered pitches of Northern Italy en route to the World Championship crown.

Since then, he’s signed with the Lions, but found his opportunities limited, stuck behind Springbok Morne van den Berg and the experienced Nico Steyn as the franchise chase a maiden appearance in the URC play-offs.

“The physicality, intensity and speed of the game at senior level – everything goes up a whole lot. That is not spoken of enough. People are like, ‘let’s just throw an 18-year-old into the URC’. Obviously it’s really nice for him to get that exposure but it’s also really difficult to adapt to a completely different game. The Lions have been really good in easing me into that.”

Unsurprisingly, there is clamour for Pead to see more action. Anxiety his talent is being stifled and his progress stalled. The Lions have an excellent track record in developing young backs and a free-wheeling tactical blueprint which will harness Pead’s strengths. But fans who’ve had a taste of his precocious brilliance are lusting for more.

“All you want to do is play rugby,” he reflects. “To get used to those types of game you have to play more and more in those competitions, and that’s how you get that sharpness. It has been quite challenging when you are so young and you don’t get the minutes you want or feel you deserve.

“After a while I realised I could go through the motions and be happy with the minutes I get, but I felt I wasn’t developing. I can’t just not do anything, so after training sessions I would work with Morne van den Berg – he really helped get my fitness up, my passing sharp, my box kicking. Every day since the beginning of the URC, I’ve been on it. Literally every day to get that extra 10%.

“I know if I do start a game, I will definitely be sharp and on it and there won’t be that doubt that I’m not ready. The coaches would also come to me and say ‘just keep working hard, your time will come’.”

We’ve come up with a plan in terms of, how do I reach my goal of becoming a Springbok, and what would be the best place for me to be to reach that goal? At the moment, it’s the Lions.

There is also much clamour around Pead’s future. His contract in Joburg has another year to run and the Stormers have been credited with an interest. So have the Sharks, who will lose Pead’s hero Grant Williams to Japan next season.

“I’ve had a chat with Michael Yormark. We’ve come up with a plan in terms of, how do I reach my goal of becoming a Springbok, and what would be the best place for me to be to reach that goal? At the moment, it’s the Lions.

“Every team in the URC has got to have their top three scrum-halves because they are playing URC and Champions or Challenge Cup. It is difficult to manage when you only have two scrum-halves, and Morne is away at the Springboks which opens up that gap for me.

“As for now, I am truly focused on the Lions, trying to become a better rugby player so I can get more minutes and hopefully that will help me achieve my international ambitions.”

That balance between purpose and pragmatism is hard to strike. All the indications are Pead is heading in the right direction. Rassie Erasmus called him into the first Springbok alignment camp of the year in March. “It opened my eyes that the Springbok dream is not as far away as you think,” he says.

It opened his eyes in other ways too.

“For me, a big thing was to bring my energy when it comes to attack and you speak to other players and they’re like, ‘yeah, rugby involves attack but it also involves defence – you can’t just give everything on attack and rest on defence’. Ever since then I’ve been working on my defence, making sure I get stuck in and involve myself a lot more.

“I’ve always been big on my fundamentals, the things a scrum-half should do, and obviously fitness levels. Those are things I have to keep on working on every day. That’s my bread and butter; I should never be struggling to pass or kick or keep up with the pace of the game.

“I believe if I keep on working on those things then hopefully my opportunity will come soon.”

What a party there’ll be in the Bo-Kaap when it does. For as he grafts away in Joburg, 1400km to the north, the folk music, the pastel colours and the people of home are always in his thoughts.