Details: Bombers coach Dick Katende dies at his home

KAMPALA.

Sadness is all over the Ugandan boxing fraternity following the news of the sudden death of former national coach Dick Katende in the early hours of Tuesday.

Hassan Khalil, Katende’s coaching fellow at the Naguru-based East Coast Boxing Club, told Daily Monitor that Katende died after collapsing in his bathroom at night.

“He was really fine and we were chatting on how to revamp our club (East Coast),” Khalil said on phone. “In fact, he stressed the urgent need to recruit more youngsters if we are to rebuild the club.”

Khalil said Katende had not had any health problems recently and was going well with his programme of training his clients in the suburbs.

“He was okay and yesterday he was supposed to go to Muyenga to train a Muzungu but he told me he had scheduled to train someone else in Makindye,” Khalil said. “So I trained the Muzungu, hoping Dick would be there today, sadly he won’t.

“His wife called me at around 3am crying for help—she had just found Dick lying on the washroom floor, gasping for breath,” Khalil narrates. “But I was in Kireka and I called my brother Hussein, who was in Naguru, to react. By the time he reached there, Dick’s body was lying in a pool of blood.”

By press time, Katende’s body was still at Mulago Hospital as mourners gather at his home about 50 metres from Naguru Remand Home. Condolences are all over social media, from boxers, coaches and fans alike.

KATENDE BRIEFLY
Born: October 24, 1959 to Missusera Olam and Georgina Lakop in Naguru Quarters
Died: August 2, 2016 (aged 56)

He joined boxing in 1971 in KCC Boxing Club. After excelling at the Schools, Novices and Intermediates, Coach Peter Grace Sseruwagi summoned him for national duty in 1977. Hes was the national middleweight champion in ’77, ’78, ’81 and ‘82. Katende won silver at the East and Central Africa Championships in Nairobi in ’79 and gold at the Africa Championships in Zambia mu ’81.

Katende begun a promising professional career, under the legendary Wilfried Sauerland Promotions in Germany, winning all his five bouts between 1982 and ’83. But an injury he had sustained on his right eye in one of his amateur fights, prior, culminated into a tone retina. After three surgeries in as many years, the last being at Morphil Hospital, London, doctors advised him to quit boxing.

He did in 1985 to start to begin coaching aged just 26. He coached the Bombers’ team which won two gold medals at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. He also coached Olympic teams in 2000 and 2004. His tenure was halted in 2007. He was summoned again in 2014, leading Mike Ssekabembe and Fazil Juma Kaggwa to bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Katende also coached clubs like Foods and Beverages, Nytil, Meatpackers and East Coast.

assemugabi@ug.nationmedia.com