Nairobi — An innovator, a father figure, a passionate sportsman and unifying personality. These were some of the words used by various mourners as they eulogized the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) second deputy vice president Waithaka Kioni.
Kioni, who doubled up as the Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) president, was on Wednesday evening given a heroic sendoff at his Kiamwangi home in Gatundu South.
The longstanding sports administrator passed away almost one-and-a-half weekends ago after suddenly falling ill on Saturday night.
Speaker after speaker waxed lyrical about the 71-year-old Kioni who was also the chef-de-mission (CDM) for Team Kenya at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
NOCK secretary general Francis Mutuku lifted the lid on how Kioni was initially reluctant to take up the position.
"In 2021, NOCK wanted to appoint a CDM and Mr Kioni was the person we thought about. He said no...he was not able to do it, why? Because he was vying for one of the positions on the continental body. For those not familiar with sports, being CDM is the dream of many sports administrators," Mutuku said.
He added: "But he said no...that he was not able to discharge the duties required of a CDM. However, we felt he had to be the one and even said we would support him by appointing a chief executive and two deputies and on that account, he was able to accept."
Mutuku further described Kioni as the glue that kept NOCK together, noting his reliability and availability to step in at short notice.
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"We were first elected to office in 2017 and being people who come from different disciplines and schools of thought, he was the glue that kept us together. He was a father figure to the staff at NOCK as well as the secretariat," he said.
Speaking at the same time, Webuye West legislator, and former international volleyball player, Dan Wanyama, admitted his devastation at the demise of a man he described as having a big heart.
"On the ninth of April, I travelled from Webuye to meet him at Kasarani for the final of the Paul Bitok Cup only to arrive and receive devastating news that he is no more. He was an icon of volleyball and has left a huge gap in leadership," Wanyama said.
Kioni's deputy at KVF, Charles Nyaberi, said his boss was an innovator who had an open mind to embracing new ideas to take the sport forward.
"Mr Kioni was a very great innovator. They were very many routes he took and gambles but they always, eventually paid off. For example, in the mid-90s, the only sports scholarships that people thought about was in athletics. But under his tutelage, he organised for Kenyan volleyball to ship out the first recipient of such scholarships," Nyaberi said.
Nyaberi added that Kioni was a people-oriented person and a charmer who managed to develop crucial networks abroad for the better of volleyball in the country.
