Philippe N’Dia’s Destiny Turned Out To Be Track, Not Basketball

Philippe N'Dia with teammates Shelby Smith, left, and Jasmine Claunch. (Centre Athletics Photo)

Philippe N’Dia came to Centre College intending to play basketball but his destiny turned out to be with another sport.

“The very first day that I moved in we bumped into (associate track) coach (Edwin) Hagans. He said that I looked like a track and field guy. I told him I had done a little bit of track but I was at Centre for basketball,” N’Dia remembered. “We had a little talk and even invited me to come out for track even though he didn’t even know me.”

N’Dia only played basketball at Lexington Christian Academy for two years and did consider track his senior year but that turned out to be when COVID hit and wiped out the high school track season. He did a postgraduate year at Western Reserve Academy and tried track for the first time.

He spent about two seasons with the Centre basketball team before joining the track team late in his sophomore year.

“I honestly didn’t play that much on the basketball team. I got into a few games in garbage minutes. I wasn’t even fully recruited by coach (Greg) Mason for basketball.”

His father is from the Ivory Coast in western Africa and moved the family there for N’Dia’s fifth through 10th grade years — he wanted to take them back sooner but civil unrest in the country prevented that — before they moved back to Lexington for his junior year.

“I fell in love with basketball in middle school. I wanted to come back to Lexington Christian and the U.S. to see how I would do in basketball over here,” he said. “I had a decent season but it wasn’t anything special. Coach Mason basically said I could come and have a tryout and I made the team.

“I never really got the opportunity to really get out there as much as I wanted to. But it was definitely fun for the time that I played.”

Once he switched to track, he found his niche and has become a successful triple jumper. Hagans had never quit encouraging N’Dia to try track and star sprinter Madjo Doumbia kept pushing him to do the same.

“She was really the one that gave me that last push to come try out and I am glad she did,” the Centre junior said.

His first week on the track team he tried the high jump, triple jump and long jump. The triple jump requires a unique skill set but that challenge appealed to N’Dia.

“I really wanted to see if I could master it,” he said.

He said something “clicked” as he practiced with jumps coach Ernest  Moshekeleti and now he wonders what he might be jumping if he had started early in his high school career instead of last season.

“A lot of kids around me have so much more experience and I do wonder about that,” he said. “That is also what keeps pushing me a little harder in practice and I think I can really do some good things.”

Mosheleketi was a three-time NAIA national champion triple jumper for Lindsey Wilson College and N’Dia has benefited from lessons he learned along the way. He’s also benefited from having All-American teammate Jasmine Claunch to watch in meets and practice.

“Those two have really helped me. Jasmine is one of the most supportive people on the team. She is always out there cheering on teammates but she is also so competitive and that pushes me to be more competitive,” N’Dia said.

He would like to reach a national qualifying mark — and he’s close — this season to get into the Division III national championships. He’s been excited to be able to win an invitational meet this year considering he’s such a newcomer to the triple jump.

“I could have easily just got on the team and not worked that hard because track is not what I came here for. I have really devoted my time and effort to become the best athlete that I can,” he said. “Just being able to see my parents and brother see what I have become is a very proud feeling for me. I am blessed to be in this position.”

N’Dia is fluent in French and got to study in Tahiti last summer as part of a French course he was taking.

His father tried to get him to speak French in Kentucky but it “never really stuck” until they moved to the Ivory Coast where it was basically mandatory to speak French. N’Dia, a French and economics/finance major, converses in French with friends in his French class.

He hopes to eventually incorporate his economics/finance degree with his love for sports and go into some type management.

“That is my dream and hopefully I can make that come true one day,” he said.