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Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1984
- Class:
- 1970
Herman Kizito Ssebazza '70
Hometown: Uganda
Sport: Soccer
Year Inducted: 1984
As a small boy in Uganda, Herman Kizito Ssebazza ’70 shaped a ball out of banana fibers and kicked it around. It was a portent of greater things to come. Ssebazza was a good enough winger on his school team to play for the Ugandan national soccer team in 1966. He continued his brilliant brand of ball-handling at Brown, where he played on several of the University’s finest soccer teams. Two of those teams won Ivy titles, and the 1968 squad was a NCAA semi-finalist. Ssebazza’s fine play brought him individual honors as well. In both 1968 and 1969 he was named to the first-team All-Ivy and second-team All-American squads. As a senior, Ssebazza served as co-captain and was a steadying influence on a team loaded with sophomores. “He has the ability to always lay a pass on a teammate’s foot, and is uncanny on headballs,” observed one sportswriter in 1969. Not only that, but Ssebazza was admired by virtually an entire campus for his personal as well as his athletic qualities. “Herm could do just about anything and he would be well-liked,” said his coach, Cliff Stevenson. Ssebazza is now an airworthiness engineer and expert adviser to the Mozambique Department of Civil Aviation, working under the United Nations Technical Assistance Programme. He and his wife, Robinah, and the youngest of Herman’s three children visited soccer teammate George Gerdts ’69 in Seattle last spring. “George and I are like brothers,” Ssebazza says. “This, to me, best exemplifies what I value most about my soccer years at Brown. To me, life, with all its complexity, is similar to a big soccer game. As I face its challenges, I can sometimes still hear Coach cliff’s voice urging me to hustle on.”
