Inclusion in Sport: Prezdential learned from early tragedy, built program to teach life skills on top of basketball

By Farrah Philpot

The road to success is often paved by failures. Manock Lual rapidly experienced that reality when he started Prezdential Basketball, which began purely as a basketball training venture but quickly had to morph into a leadership program.

Prezdential now helps youth facing many of the challenges Lual encountered when he was younger. The second youngest of his eight siblings, Lual was raised in Overbrook after his family escaped war in Sudan.

After finding friendships and passion in basketball, the 6′6″ forward earned a scholarship to the University of Prince Edward Island and went on to play professionally overseas before returning home for a short stint with the (now-defunct) Ottawa SkyHawks.

“When I finished playing basketball, I felt like I put so much time into the game, but I didn’t think I got what I wanted out of it,” recounts Lual, who eventually created Prezdential after overcoming depression and a lack of identity when his playing career ended.

Lual’s main goal in developing Prezdential Basketball was to help local disadvantaged youth get recognized by universities.

“There were youth in the community who were very talented but weren’t able to get connected to post-secondary opportunities because they didn’t understand the process or have the network,” highlights Lual.

Prezdential was immediately successful in that initial quest, with 12 players acquiring full scholarships to post-secondary institutions in Atlantic Canada. But then came the bumps in the road.

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“By Christmas, we found out three weren’t going back,” recalls Lual, who was also deeply affected when one of his youth was shot.

That tragedy caused him to see that while Prezdential was crafting strong players, it wasn’t providing all the skills necessary to succeed in life. So they changed their approach to focus on developing not only successful athletes but also successful people.

Prezdential added financial literacy training programs, helping their student-athletes understand what credit was and how to build it while they were away from home. They explained how to apply for the Ontario Student Assistance Program, how to find an apartment, they provided cooking and home economics courses, and how to budget for meals and still eat healthy.

“And just like that, we shifted our programs from just basketball development to more emotional regulation and life skill programming,” notes Lual, who now runs a total of 32 programs annually across various settings, serving roughly 700 youth a week.

“We’ve done a lot of growing,” smiles the UPEI sociology/business grad who began Prezdential in 2018.

Among the popular programs is The Offseason, which recently completed its sixth summer season.

“It’s a way to cater to high-level athletes that are coming home and they’re not training and they’re not really putting in the time,” says Lual, noting that the program is for athletes who don’t have a specific team they’re playing for during the off-season. “It’s a base in the foundation of giving you the skills and tools you need so that when you go back to your season, you’re better.”

He explains that at the beginning of the off-season program, he will ask the athlete their goal. They will then break down the goal to make it manageable to achieve.

“So it’s tailored to many, but at the same time, tailored to you specifically,” signals the 36-year-old who recently became a father.

Thanks to funding from the Ottawa Community Housing Foundation and the Vanier Community Organization, roughly 50 youth from low-income backgrounds are able to participate in The Offseason for free. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board also supports the program with student coaches, while the Ottawa Blackjacks and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group provides professional mentors and guest speakers. And Prezdential recently received a $2,000 Ottawa Sport Council Foundation Community Opportunity Grant to further augment the program.

Lual has his eye on creating an interactive workbook to continue to enhance Prezential’s now-flourishing offerings and again build on some of the pieces that were absent early on.

“This workbook is going to break down all the steps you need to mentally prepare yourself to be able to achieve any goal that you’re looking to,” Lual indicates, noting the plan is to give the workbook to all future participants and also connect it to related workshops.

One of the players who has already seized the Prezdential playbook is Kerim Chasso. Chasso first met Lual when he was in Grade 9. He trained under Lual, and now he is doing the same as a coach for the next generation.

“He helped me get better at ball, and I wanted to stay even after I was done being a basketball player,” Chasso details. “I wanted to still help train kids, and he gave me an opportunity.”

This article is part of the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Inclusion in Sport series. Read more about local sport inclusion initiatives at: OttawaSportsPages.ca/Ottawa-Sports-Pages-Inclusion-In-Sport-Series/.