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Sarah Chikaodinaka Ogoke is a Nigerian basketball amazon, who like her compatriot, Michelle Alozie, a female footballer, combines professional basketball with her medical career.
Ogoke was born in New York in 1990 to Nigeria parents from south-east Nigeria. She is the middle child with nine-step- siblings from both parents.
The lanky basketball player took after her parents, who are both in the medical fraternity; her father, Bentley Ogoke, is a medical doctor, while her mother Edith Okure-Ogoke is a nurse.
The first sport Sarah engaged in early in life was football. However, at the age of 12, she was introduced to the game of basketball by the children in her neighbourhood.
In school, Sarah combined sports and education, finished with honours in both. She won the Defensive Player of the Year, Newcomer of the year, All division, and All – America honours while playing for the university female basketball team.
Sarah’s basketball career has seen her play for Southern Polytechnic State University. The University of Pittsburgh in the United States, and back home in Nigeria, she featured for the best female basketball club, First Bank Basketball Club of Lagos.
She also had stint with one of the best in Africa, the Deepwater Basketball Club also in Nigeria, before her career voyages took her to Celta Vigo in Spain, Primeiro Agosto in Angola and Ferroviário of Mozambique with whom she won the FIBA African Women’s Champions Cup in 2019.
Sarah Chikaodinaka Ogoke got her chance to play for the Nigerian Women’s National team at the 2011 All African Games in Mozambique, and Afrobasket Women’s Championship in Mali same year.
With a space of time Sarah graduated to become a household name among the female basketball followers. She is captained of the Nigeria’s Women’s National Basketball Team, D’Tigress to claim the historic fourth consecutive Afrobasket title, after subduing the Senegalese women in the final of the 2023 women’s championship 84-74 at the BK Arena, Kigali, Rwanda.
The five foot nine (1m75 / 5-9) height is a shooting guard for the female national basketball team, D’ Tigress.
She participated at the 2017 Women’s Afrobasket, the 2018 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, and 2019 Women’s Afrobasket.
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The surgeon cum basketball player has won four consecutive Women’s AfroBasket (2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023) with Nigeria’s Women’s National Basketball Team, D’Tigress.
The ebony black amazon, popularly known as “Cheeks” among her acquaintances is following in her parents’ footsteps and she has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology/Premedicine from the Southern Polytechnic State University, Mariett, Georgia.
She is presently studying at the New York College of Podiatric Medicine to become a podiatrist (foot/ankle doctor). As a podiatrist, she hopes to help people prevent, diagnose, and treat a wide range of conditions including ingrown toenails, heel and arch pain.
She divides her time between Nigeria, the United States and Mozambique where she is currently playing basketball at club level.
She has worked as a volunteer clinician at the JonBon Hospital in Imo State and has been involved in many training camps for youth in many parts of Nigeria.
(Business Day)
