THE RUNNING BOYS

Hailing from a small town in the Cape, brothers Nadeel and Adrian Wildschutte are preparing to run the world

By Lyndon Julius | Photography: Skhu Nkomphela

From the small town of Ceres, about two hours outside Cape Town, two brothers, took up long-distance running during their later years of high school. The brothers, Nadeel and Adrian Wildschutte, would take part in athletics and cricket during the summer; in winter, they could be found on the rugby field. The elder of the two, Nadeel, was especially fond of sport, participating in every sporting code he could.

Now, Nadeel is completing his postgraduate qualification at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) while younger brother Adrian is completing his Masters in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Florida State University in the United States.

“When it was cricket season, I would play cricket, and when it was winter, I would play rugby,” Nadeel says in an exclusive interview with Blue & Gold. “It was during matric that coach Moos Hartnick introduced me to middle-distance running. He immediately identified my shortcomings and the areas where I needed to improve. Things happened so fast after that and six months of training later, I was in the Boland team.”

Younger brother Adrian followed in his brother’s footsteps around six months after Nadeel took up running and claims to have joined Nadeel after boredom got the better of him while waiting on rugby, his preferred sporting code at the time. “I used to play rugby for part of high school and I was bored at home,” Adrian says. “With homework and chores done, and no rugby practice, I just decided to go to training with Nadeel. It was really difficult at first but I pushed myself hard and found that I really enjoyed it. People also said I was good at it. I wasn’t really into running but I guess boredom just got the better of me that day.”

The duo became members of the Ceres Athletic Club and were soon on their way to the United States after a call with Zola Pieterse (née Budd), the legendary South African-born, British long-distance runner. Pieterse coaches cross-country and long-distance runners at Coastal Carolina University in the US and recruited Adrian and Nadeel after spotting their talent in high school.

“Coach Zola somehow believes that the best long-distance and cross-country runners are from Boland and the rural areas in South Africa, so she was actively looking to recruit talented runners. At that time, I was the best in my age category and still at school, so she contacted the club but Oom Lionel said I’d probably finish school first before moving to the US,” explains Adrian, who was still a few years away from matric at the time, 2016. Nadeel, on the other hand, was already enrolled at UWC and in his first year.

“Initially, they wanted Adrian, who was very good in his age group. He was in the top 10 in the country,” says Nadeel. “I wasn’t as good as him; I’d say I was above average. But I was quite an effective provincial runner and Oom Lionel, the manager of the club, introduced me to Zola anyway. She said my times suited the university and they offered me a full scholarship. I had to write the SAT test, which is quite similar to the university admission test we take in South Africa.”

Coming from a predominantly Afrikaans neighbourhood and school, the Wildschutte brothers had to not only adapt to a new culture and way of doing things, but also pick up the English language very quickly.

In a matter of weeks, both Adrian and Nadeel would set sail and embark on the opportunity of a lifetime. Out on the field and while running, they didn’t need to be fluent in English but it was when they were in the classroom or being interviewed by the media in South Carolina that they would need to be as effective in English as they were in cross country. The transition for both of them was a shock to the system, but they adapted and adjusted very well with the help of a small community of South Africans based in the state.

“What we achieved was destined for us, the opportunity was there to go to the United States, but I believe the transition from Ceres to UWC helped me a lot,” Nadeel adds. “The less urbanised towns like Ceres are quite rural; we’re not exposed to the busy city world. I think that prepared me personally for the way of doing things in the States.

“The acclimatisation was quite hectic. We were forced to speak minimum Afrikaans. We would eliminate being homesick by coming together with other South Africans. There were a few soccer players and Zola and her family so we would come together and have a braai from time to time, something that would remind us of home.”

Both brothers are now focused on improving their times and to qualify for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, which will be held in Bathurst, Australia in February 2022 due to the uncertainty of the pandemic.

The brothers are also, for the second time since taking up long-distance running, members of two different clubs. Nadeel, who runs for UWC, graduated from Coastal Carolina University with a Bachelors of Science (Bsc) degree with a focus on business and human resource management and is currently completing his postgraduate degree in Business Administration while Adrian is enrolled in a Masters programme at Florida State University.

The boys from Ceres believe that hard work and belief in God goes a long way to realising your dream, no matter what it is. “We were destined for this path that we are on, we both believe this,” Nadeel proudly states. “We pray a lot and we believe the prayers of our parents and family brought and carried us through the tough times; it still does.

“I have a saying that I always read back to myself whenever I feel a bit down: Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. I am not sure who the author is, but I read it somewhere and it stuck with me.”