*OMPB: Interview with Lunouc T'Chawama

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With offensive lineman Beniri T’Chawama entering the S31 Draft, the league totally wanted to hear the scoop on how Beniri made his way from a small island off the continent of Africa, all the way to the DSFL and eventually ISFL draft. Here was an interview with the father of this soon to be DSFL player, Lunouc T’Chawama. Lunouc T’Chawama works as one of the chefs at Beniri’s high school in Moroni, Comoros, helping prepare food for the school, the football team, and especially Beniri.

Starting things off, we asked Lunouc how Beniri was as a child. To this he responded “Beniri has always been a good kid. He looked out for others, but never really got into sports at a young age despite me signing him up for everything.” With that, Lunouc also had this to say when asked about some fun facts about Beniri as a kid: “Well, he was always a big fan of my pancakes. I remember when he was just starting to grow his first set of teeth, I fed him one of the pancakes I made for breakfast that morning. He was instantly hooked and it became one of the first words he learned! All throughout elementary school it would be pancakes for breakfast, brunch or lunch, whatever the occasion.”

That was certainly an interesting fact about Beniri and we were all quite surprised that he did not immediately try American football as one of his first sports. Wondering why, we asked Lunouc what was the first sport he put Beniri in. “Here in Comoros, football (or as the Americans like to call it, soccer) is the biggest sport. Our national team has been making great strides so I saw it was fitting to have Beniri try” Lunouc said. Continuing, “The entry is relatively cheap as well since all you need is a good pair of shoes and a ball! However, we knew quite immediately that football was not meant for our son when we watched Beniri always cheering on the bench.”

As football was not the sport for Beniri, we asked Lunouc how they had him make the switch to American football? “After we realized football was not for Beniri, we asked if he would like to try another sport. He was always excited to try new things and help other teams so we went with the next most accessible sport: basketball” explained Lunouc. This certainly made a bit of sense considering Beniri is 7 foot 4 inches tall. He could certainly dunk the ball, but why did it fall through? “Well, Beniri may be tall, but he’s not the most agile person on the court. Whenever he played he was just getting his ankles broken on the court and once again found himself sitting on the side, cheering on the team. Long story short, he hopped around a couple of sports and we were about to give up until his PE teacher came up to us” Lunouc said. “He asked us if Beniri had tried American football. Apparently they tried playing it in their PE class and Beniri was good. I was a little shocked considering the number of sports he didn’t succeed in.”

Ultimately finding his sport, Beniri moved to the United States playing for Iowa Central Community College, Shepherd University, and the University of Oregon before joining the Minnesota Grey Ducks temporarily for this season. We asked Lunouc how that experience was like, having Beniri moving away from them and how they kept in contact. To that, Lunouc replied “It was certainly a big decision to have Beniri move away after graduating from high school. We didn’t necessarily have the largest funds as a family, and it was hard to see our son go, but we could tell with that look in his eyes that he really wanted to do this. How can a parent see their child want it so badly and say no?” Lunouc continued saying “With that we gathered some funds to send him over for the first school year, but the rest he worked part time at a local pancake restaurant to support himself. We kept in contact through some fancy messaging app I have never seen before, video calling about once a week to make sure he’s doing fine. I was certainly surprised to hear that he moved up the American football probam so quickly and is about to enter the DSFL!”

As mentioned previously, Beniri T’Chawama currently is playing on the Minnesota Grey Ducks for the time being and are looking prime for a good playoff run. We asked if he had any thoughts on that. “I am extremely proud to see Beniri at this stage already and we know he can do great things. Whether he plays or not, you know we will be there cheering him on in spirit.”

Although the DSFL is just entering the playoffs, we did want to know about what Beniri likes to do when it is the offseason. Lunouc said “As I said before, Beniri has always been a fan of pancakes as a kid and on his off days he would just be around friends, keeping them feeling nice, welcomed, and warmed around him. He would make the T’Chawama family signature pancakes which everyone has enjoyed.” Speaking of the T’Chawama family signature pancakes, Lunouc exclaimed “I hope he has made some of that famous pancakes for the Grey Ducks! They’re always a great way to keep the team happy and well fed!”

With that, we concluded our interview with the father of soon to be drafted DSFL to ISFL player, Beniri T’Chawama. We definitely thank Lunouc T’Chawama for setting aside some time when he’s not helping to prepare lunch food for the students.


Having read this article after it was posted, Beniri had a couple of words to say about his father: “Wow I didn’t expect my father to have been interviewed about this. It is definitely an amazing experience to be here and I thank both my parents for supporting me through this journey. I know they’re always with me every game despite being across the world. Just wait until I win this cup with the Minnesota Grey Ducks and I’ll come back as soon as I can to have some of those pancakes!”




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