Olaseni “Shane” Lawal has had many opportunities to throw in the towel. But had he done so, the 29-year-old wouldn’t have been invited to play for the Nigerian basketball team during this year’s Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“Playing for my home country’s team in the Olympics is a feeling I can’t describe,” Lawal said. “It’s a dream come true and something I’ve worked very hard to get to. It came with a lot of hard work, perseverance, dedication and believing in myself. I learned a lot of that while playing at WSU.”

A former standout for the 2008-2009 Wayne State University basketball squad, Lawal is just the second former Wayne State athlete in the last three decades to compete at the Olympics.

WSU swimmer Fernando Costa, CLAS ’09, M. CLAS ’10, competed for his home country, Portugal, in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. In addition to being a swimmer for WSU, Costa was a student assistant coach of the swimming team. He earned a master’s degree in nutrition and food science.

Costa understands what it’s like to step onto the world stage at the Olympics, competing not only for yourself but millions of fellow citizens in the home country. He shared some good advice for Lawal.

“Enjoy the moment. The first time is so overwhelming,” Costa said. “You’ll find yourself walking through the Olympic Village and seeing members of the USA basketball Dream Team or other professional athletes. But the thing is that they’re all there and they’re just like you. You are equals. It goes by quickly and you don’t want to lose focus of what you’re there to accomplish.”

Road to Rio

Lawal’s journey began at 8 years old when his parents moved the family from Nigeria to the United States. They first settled in Mobile, Alabama, before eventually making their way up to Michigan. He graduated in 2004 from Southfield Lathrup High School, before attending the University of Michigan for one academic year. He transferred to Oakland University in2005-06 where he began his collegiate basketball career for the Golden Grizzlies. He spent three seasons with them before coming to Wayne State.

Perseverance should be Lawal’s middle name. When he wasn’t drafted by the NBA in 2009 after finishing his collegiate career at WSU, he could’ve hung up his jersey for good. Instead, the 6-foot-10 center/power forward decided to make his own video highlight reel that got noticed by a basketball recruiter in Qatar (a small country tucked in the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iran).

“I had to get on the scene. It wasn’t the scene I wanted, but it got me overseas,” Lawal said. “Some might say it was a foot in the door; more like a toe in the door.”

Qatar was a good place for Lawal to cut his teeth in the overseas basketball market. It was also a chance for him to find out where he didn’t want to be. “The management was really unprofessional. It was my first experience, so I didn’t know any better,” Lawal recalled. “I remember closer to the time that I left Qatar I told the fellow rookies that this was a joke. I asked them why we were playing in this league. They were all trying to convince me as to why I shouldn’t play in Europe — it’s harder, more practices, coaches yell at you.”

And Lawal wanted what Europe had to offer. He wasn’t about to settle for the salary he played for in Qatar, especially compared with what he could make playing in a more prestigious league. In addition, it wasn’t in his nature to be complacent. After all, this was his career. His one shot to make it.

So Lawal started a six-year journey that would take him from Spain, to Libya, back to Spain, to Italy, to Kazakhstan, back to Italy and finally to his current home — Barcelona.

As challenging as that journey was, it was the time he spent in Libya that would cause most people to give up on their dreams and return home. It was April 2011 – one month into the Libyan Civil War – and Lawal’s life was in danger. As the civil war erupted, local Africans were being executed on the spot. Lawal and a teammate feared for their safety and took refuge in a hotel for one week without communication. The pair eventually escaped Libya on a British ship (the HMS Cumberland) headed to Malta.

“I almost quit basketball,” Lawal said. “But I found faith in my ability and God to continue the journey.”

His journey eventually led to his current team, FC Barcelona. It’s considered one of the top professional basketball clubs in the world that competes in the Euroleague and in the ACB Spanish League. That prestige also helped Lawal to land a spot on the Nigerian national team competing in the Olympics. In addition, he helped punch his ticket to Rio by helping Nigeria win the 2015 Afrobasket African Championships.

“I had been trying to play for Nigeria since I was in Spain the first time,” Lawal explained. “But by being on a bigger stage, a bigger platform, my name is actually known now. If I was still in the same place when I began, playing in places like Qatar, this door would not have been opened.”

Despite the many obstacles, Lawal says he will enjoy his first Olympics knowing that he brought himself to this point.

“I’m a strong believer in things happening, through hard work and perseverance,” Lawal said. “If I didn’t think I was going to get this far, I would’ve just stayed at Oakland University. But I decided to throw myself off the cliff, compete at Wayne State, and give myself a better chance to do something.”

Update: This story originally appeared in the summer edition of Wayne State's alumni magazine. In Nigeria's first contest of the Olympics against Argentina, Lawal suffered an injury and was forced to leave the game. Unfortunately, he will miss the rest of the Summer Games.