Durban — Springbok captain Siya Kolisi is appearing on an American prime-time television show on Monday morning to explain the role the Springbok rugby team plays in transforming sport in South Africa and in uniting the country in general.
Kolisi is interviewed on the hard-hitting news show 60 Minutes by US sports journalist legend Jon Wertheim, the executive editor of Sports Illustrated since 1996.
In the Twitter teaser to the show, Kolisi says he will explain how Nelson Mandela envisaged sport as a tool to bind the country and repair the damage caused by decades of apartheid-enforced inequality.
In post-apartheid South Africa, the national rugby team's first Black captain, Siya Kolisi, is keenly aware of the challenges of transforming the team. Sunday, @jon_wertheim meets Kolisi & sees how he uses sport to help bind a country still riven by inequality & racial divisions. pic.twitter.com/ayyRw1PKkX
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 29, 2022
The Springboks were once the most hated team in South Africa, but because of Madiba’s vision they are now the most racially-transformed team in South African sport and the ideal illustration of what can be achieved in South Africa by willing participants.
In just about every one of Kolisi’s captain’s press conferences on the eve of a Test match, he speaks about the team’s responsibility to put smiles on the faces of a nation ailing from a myriad of ills. Indeed, Skipper Siya constantly speaks of the need for the Boks to be the light in the darkness, in a smiling jab at Eskom.
60 Minutes is one of the most successful television news magazine broadcasts in history. Offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news, it began in 1968 and is still a hit, over 50 seasons later, regularly making Nielsen’s Top 10.
The interview with Kolisi will be screened to millions of Americans and viewers worldwide.
WHEN: Monday, October 3 at 1:30am
WHERE: CBS and online at 60minutes.com.
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