Tendai Mtawarira: How A Young Zimbabwean Became The Beast
As rugby nicknames go, there are few more iconic than that of Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira. A layman could be forgiven for feeling confused every time he picks up the ball and the stadium seems to fill with boos – in fact, it is his devoted fans’ booming blasts of this peculiar name
For a towering man of over six foot and 18 stone, it is an appropriate sobriquet. Remarkably, it has its roots in a time before Mtawarira so much as knew what a rugby ball looked like.
“It started when I was a young boy; a nine year old in primary school,” he reminisces. “My best friend gave me that nickname because I was a bit of a man-child and bit naughty as well!
“He’s always calling me up to ask me for royalties because he’s the one that came up with it,” he adds, chuckling.
It seems today like there could have been no other path than rugby for a nine year old nicknamed the Beast to go down, but the man who is now synonymous with South Africa’s fiercely powerful game never even touched a rugby ball until the age of 10. Born and bred in Harare, Zimbabwe, rugby was way down on the list of sports played at school.
“I actually started off playing soccer – that was my first love,” he says. “At primary school I was a goalie and my dream was to play for Manchester United – Peter Schmeichel was the goalie at the time and that was my dream.
“There was no rugby at my school, but when I was 10 years old they introduced it. I was a big man and they offered me a try-out – I went, fell in love with it and started playing for the first team. That’s where the rugby journey started.”
It was an inauspicious start in the sport, but the reach of scouting networks is far and wide and it was only a matter of time before someone powerful spotted him. He moved to a proper rugby high school before his big break came while playing for a representative team for his country of birth.
“I went to a really good rugby high school, and I just fell in love with the game more and more. There was a tournament in South Africa and I was playing for the Zimbabwe Under 18s, and the Sharks’ scouts were there. They invited me to come to the academy and offered me a bursary to study, and play rugby.”
