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Nonfiction
A trophy is a cup or other Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation object given to winners of a
The Rugby World Cup
1 “When the game ended,” Morne Du Plessis said, “I turned and started running towards the tunnel and there was Edward Griffiths, who had invented the ‘One Team, One Country’ slogan, and he said to me, ‘Things are never going to be the same again.’ And I agreed instantly, because I knew right there that the best was behind, that life could offer nothing better. I said to him ‘We’ve seen it all today.’”
2 But Du Plessis was wrong. There was more. There was Mandela going down onto the pitch, with his jersey on, with his cap on his head to hand over the cup to his friend Francois. And there was the crowd again — “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!” — enraptured, as Mandela appeared at the touchline, smiling from ear to ear, waving to the crowd, as he prepared to walk toward a little podium that had been placed on the field where he would hand the world cup trophy to Francois Pienaar.
***
3 The gods at that moment were Mandela and Pienaar, the old man in green, crowned king of all South Africa, handing the cup to Pienaar, the young man in green, anointed that day as the spiritual head of born-again Afrikanerdom.
4 As the captain held the cup, Mandela put his left hand on his right shoulder, fixed him with a fond gaze, shook his right hand and said, “Francois, thank you very much for what you have done for our country.”
5 Pienaar, meeting Mandela’s eyes, replied, “No, Mr. President. Thank you for what you have done for our country.”
6 Had he been preparing for this moment all his life, he could not have struck a truer chord. As Desmond Tutu said, “That response was made in heaven. We human beings do our best, but those words at that moment, well . . . . . . you couldn’t have scripted it.”
7 Maybe a Hollywood scriptwriter would have had them giving each other
a hug. It was an impulse Pienaar confessed later that he only barely restrained. Instead the two just looked at each other and laughed. Morne du Plessis, standing close by, looked at Mandela and the Afrikaner prodigal together, he saw Pienaar raise the cup high above his shoulders as Mandela, laughing, pumped his fists in the air, and he struggled to believe what his eyes were seeing. “I’ve never seen such complete joy,” Du Plessis said. “He is looking at Francois and just, sort of, keeps laughing ... and Francois is looking at Mandela and ... the bond between them!”
8 It was all too much for the tough-minded Slabbert, hard-nosed veteran of a thousand political battles. “When Francois said that into the microphone, with Mandela there listening, laughing, and waving to the crowd and raising his cap to them, well,” said Slabbert, “everybody was weeping. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
9 There wasn’t a dry eye in the country.
contest. The word has its roots in ancient times, when warriors would take the weapons
of those whom they had conquered as a prize of battle. The word comes to us from the French trophee, which referred to the display of such weapons.
pitch: the playing field
anointed: chosen to lead
aCTIvITy 3.20
continued
Playing the Enemy:
Word CoNNeCTIoNS
Etymology
my Notes
prodigal: someone who has behaved recklessly in the past but has reformed his behavior
Unit 3 • Choices and Consequences 239
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