BROEDERSTROOM, South Africa – How do you make a strong and fit 6-foot-11 man feel small and short?
Witness two-time NBA All-Star Joakim Noah visit the Lion & Safari Park in South Africa.
“It’s a different order out there in the wild,” Noah told Andscape from the Lion & Safari Park. “They always say, ‘It’s a lion order.’ And just being out here, the land of the lions, and just being that close to ’em, just being able to feel that energy, that primal energy at its most natural form, experiences like this … it changes you.”
Noah was a defensive standout who averaged 8.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks during 672 games in his NBA career from 2007 to 2020. The 2014 NBA Defensive Player of the Year was a three-time All-NBA Defensive Team selection. The former University of Florida star also was an NBA All-Star with the Chicago Bulls in 2013 and 2014.
Noah says he doesn’t miss playing in the NBA, but he has stayed connected to the game of basketball with the Basketball Africa League.
“I shot every bullet in my gun when it comes to hooping. Thirteen years, eight surgeries. I missed the camaraderie of the guys. But overall, it takes a lot out of me. I love the game, but I’m just happy sharing the experience and watching other guys get their opportunities,” Noah said.
Noah, Grant Hill, Junior Bridgeman, Luol Deng and Dikembe Mutombo are all former NBA stars who have invested in the BAL. The BAL is in the midst of its fourth season with 12 teams from 12 African countries with preliminary play has been completed in Pretoria, South Africa. Dakar, Senegal; and Cairo, Egypt are next. The playoffs and championship game will be played in Kigali, Rwanda. The NBA-led BAL is a partnership between FIBA and NBA Africa.
Noah’s father, former French tennis star Yannick Noah, took him to visit their family’s native Cameroon when he was a child. In recent years, Joakim Noah has built basketball courts in Cameroon and Nigeria. Through the BAL, he is helping build the foundation to develop African basketball players, coaches, referees and venues.
“It’s just important being able to work with BAL,” Noah said. “The beauty is just really traveling all around the continent. And South Africa is a special place. It’s a charged place. It’s the land of the Zulus, Zulu warriors. Heavy history, a history of real revolutionaries. What made me join BAL is the leadership, first and foremost. That’s what I was the most excited about.
“[BAL president] Amadou [Fall] is somebody that I trust and I believe in. He came to my village in Cameroon early in my career for my first [basketball] camp. He didn’t have to do that. This is way before BAL. This is just supporting my village where my father’s from, my roots, and I remember him speaking to the kids and I was like, ‘OK, this guy’s a real leader with a real vision.’ And for this opportunity to happen as soon as I retired from basketball, I feel more purpose now than I did when I played because of this opportunity.”
Andscape
Noah’s visit to South Africa was his first. It’s eighth country he has visited in Africa. He says he fell in love with South Africa, the restaurants and nightlife in Johannesburg during visits to BAL games and a Special Olympics event in Pretoria and the Mandela House. But of all the South African events, Noah was most excited about going to the Lion & Safari Park in March.
The 2,471-acre wildlife sanctuary includes lions, giraffes, cheetahs, hyenas and zebras. Like most visitors, Noah was most excited and nervous about seeing the lions from a safe bus for good reason. In 2015, an American woman was mauled to death by a lioness at the Lion & Safari Park during a self-guided driving tour in which a mistake was made by rolling down a car window. An Australian tourist was once bitten by a lion after leaving a car window open and a teenager who broke protocol by riding a bike through an unsupervised area was attacked by a cheetah.
“The unchained lions, that’s the model. Every time you have an opportunity to see lions, yeah, you got to go feel it. We’re inside the cages today. I’m excited,” Noah said before the tour.
Veteran tour guide Alex Larenty showed Noah and his friends around with a personal tour. Larenty, 65, has been giving tours for 24 years to celebrities such as comedian Kevin Hart, actor Will Smith, tennis legend Serena Williams, singer Celine Dion, rapper Snoop Dogg, and Clint Eastwood, his favorite actor. Larenty said he raised some of the safari animals at his home, gladly works seven days a week and is comfortable with lions whether he is feeding them meat, hugging them, combing their mane or playfully grabbing them.
“When you got a lot of worries and a lot of things going on in your private life, [the lion] comes and gives you a big hug, everything just goes away,” Larenty said. “I actually think that I have more animal friends than people friends. I don’t know if that makes any sense. The older I get, the more of a privilege it is that I have a chance to work with [the animals].”
Larenty’s first stop on the tour was visiting two lions, including his favorite named George, and two lionesses. He pulled the bus alongside the lazy lions relaxing on the ground. Raw meat tossed by Larenty got the lions up and moving.
Noah was sitting on the back row of the bus marveling at the lions when Larenty told him to get ready for a closeup. Larenty placed three pieces of meat on a metal stick and put it alongside the bus within a foot through the bars from Noah. The lion leaped up, grabbed the side of the bus and ate the meat while a smiling yet cautious Noah looked directly into its eyes. Afterward, an excited Noah FaceTimed his wife, Lais Ribero, to enthusiastically tell her about the encounter.
“It looked like that lion does not care about anything but trying to get to you,” Noah reflected. “I’ll never forget it, that look in that lion’s eye. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. I can go back home now and I got a real story to tell and it’s documented …
“Nature has a way of just keeping you humble. That lion doesn’t care about your double-double. That lion will eat Shaq [O’Neal].”
Andscape
Andscape
The rest of the tour included close ups of wildebeests, hyenas and even a black leopard. A lioness scared the tourists on Noah’s bus when it tried to snatch a backpack with its teeth before Larenty pulled it away. There were also impalas in the wild that could end up being prey for the lions.
“See the ‘M’ on their bums. That’s for McDonald’s,” Larenty joked. “They’re the fast food here.”
The last and perhaps most beautiful stop on the tour was a visit with a mild-mannered giraffe that was about 16 feet tall. Noah was all smiles as he walked up to the giraffe and he fed it potato chips out of his hand. The adventurous Larenty also fed the giraffe a potato chip out of his mouth.
The beauty and height of the giraffe left a lasting impression.
“It’s so beautiful. You don’t have to worry as much being near the giraffe,” Noah said. “It’s a different energy than [the lions]. They’re eating leaves off the tree. They want to eat chips. That lion trying to eat, chew … it’s a different vibe.”
While Noah is technically a New Yorker, the Cameroon T-shirt wearer bleeds Africa. From his boyhood trips to Cameroon with his father to building new courts in Cameroon and Nigeria to going to BAL games in South Africa, Rwanda, South Africa and Egypt and visiting the Lion & Safari Park, every second he spends in Africa is meaningful to him.
“There’s something about every time you step onto the motherland,” Noah said. “It’s hard to put into words, but I know that a part of me is always here.”
