Clearly Riiny Giir, a basketball player of some promise, needs to add weight, needs to carry more than the 185 pounds he currently carries on his 6-8 frame.
But if Giir is carrying any additional burdens from all he has experienced in 20 years of life, he seems to bear them as well as is humanly possible.
Giir, who on Saturday concluded his freshman season at Franklin & Marshall, hails from South Sudan, a country in east-central Africa that fought for and gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, only to plunge into civil war two years later. That lasted until 2020, and even today foreigners are discouraged from traveling there, because of “COVID-19, crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict,” as noted in a U.S. State Department advisory issued in June 2021.
Giir was born in the city of Wau, in the northwest part of South Sudan, but because of the unrest in his native land spent nine years (between 2009-18) in Uganda. He did venture back to the city of Juba in 2016 to take part in the Manute Bol Basketball Program, a youth initiative launched by a foundation under the direction of South Sudan native Luol Deng, the retired NBA player. It is named in honor of Bol, who was born in Turalei (now part of South Sudan), played 10 NBA seasons (including three-plus with the Sixers) and died in 2010 at age 47.
The camp marked Giir’s first exposure to organized hoops, but was interrupted when violence sprang up anew.
“I stayed safe,” he said. “I just tried to stay at home as much as I could, and the area I was in was kind of protected by the government. So it wasn’t that bad for me to go out there.”
Others were not nearly so fortunate.
“But,” he said, “I usually don’t talk about that.”
When asked about his homeland now, he said he discusses the food or the culture – one example of the latter being that because polygamy is legal there, his dad has five wives. That means Riiny is not exactly sure how many siblings he has.
“More than 21,” he said, “because some of the wives are still giving birth right now. I can’t even keep count of how many they have.”
And he talks about how different things are in the U.S. He has lived here for most of the last four years, after an uncle arranged for him and his cousin, Chan Riiny, to come over. Both went to the same high school in San Francisco, played on the same AAU team and for a time lived with the same host family. Both also attended prep school last year, Giir after catching the eye of Dips coach Nick Nichay at a camp at Princeton.
And while Riiny is now at Georgetown, Ky., Giir has settled in at F&M.
“I think one of the most important things is appreciating the little things,” he said of his adopted home country. “Where I’m from, there’s usually, like, communal sharing, and things that are owned by the community. In the US, it’s more about private stuff – like, ‘This is mine.’ ”
He was seated on a couch in a conference room within Mayser Gym as he said that, still in his practice gear. His long, willowy legs were stretched out before him. His future, too.
On the court he has shown flashes, if not consistency. In the classroom he has excelled, and plans to major in computer science, with an eye on perhaps one day becoming a data scientist.
As for anything unsavory, he has left that far behind.
“You just have a positive attitude toward everything,” he said. “I don’t look at it as a bad thing that happened. I look at it as an opportunity just to move forward. The past is in the past, and I guess we just have to keep going forward.”
Nichay acknowledged that Giir’s background is “drastically” different from that of most of his teammates, while also pointing out that the Dips have had their share of international players in recent years, like 2016 graduate Cedric Moune and 2018 graduate Lionel Owana, both of whom hail from Cameroon, and 2013 graduate Hayk Gyokchyan, who is from Armenia and still playing professionally in Lebanon.
But unlike Moune, a big man F&M could afford to bring along slowly while others hogged the post minutes early in his career, Giir has been thrown out there for a team that is finding its way. It has been, Nichay said, “a roller coaster ride” for the youngster this season. But certainly Giir has skills and athleticism. He can run and jump, and the mechanics on his shot are fine. Moreover, he’s bright and persistent, as exhibited by the fact that he repaired to the court for extra shooting after struggling at the foul line in a game early in the season.
“He’s not afraid to work,” Nichay said. “He’s never had a practice where he didn’t go hard. He’s never had a moment where he doesn’t listen or try to get better with it. He’s doing everything the right way.”
Giir went 5-for-5 from the floor while scoring 12 points as the Dips closed out a 10-15 season with a 77-55 thrashing of McDaniel on Saturday, and for the season averaged eight points and just under four rebounds in 20 minutes a game.
The Dips are also expected to return this year’s second-, third- and fourth-leading scorers in 2022-23 – guards John Seidman and Omar Nichols, and forward Josh Parra — among many others. Parra and Nichols are sophomores for the Dips, who because of COVID-19 did not play in ‘20-21, while Seidman is, like Giir, a freshman.
Time for the big guy to get in the weight room, though. Time to put on some weight. And understand that he has already come a long way in that regard; he checked in at 140 pounds when he first came to the U.S.
“And if I go back (to South Sudan) right now,” he said, “they might think I’m fat. They’d be like, ‘Riiny, you gained so much weight.’”
In his mind he needs about 20 more pounds of muscle to hang with Centennial Conference big men. But certainly he has already proven he can carry that weight, and carry that weight a long time – in every sense.
“He’s a kid that just by the nature of his experience and where he is and what he’s doing has had to grow faster than other guys,” Nichay said. “So he’s got a maturity to him.”
And greater strength than meets the eye.