Sports
Episode #127: Nkosi Tafari has layers to peel. Besides his unique style and look, this New Yorker is embracing life in Texas and soaking in the international culture from his teammates. In this episode, we talk with Tafari about his place on the FC Dallas first team. We also learn about his other sports interests when he was – basketball, track and lacrosse. Enjoy this Hustle and Pro conversation with FC Dallas defender Nkosi Tafari. Photo courtesy of FC Dallas FC Dallas | Website Nkosi Tafari | FCD Bio TRANSCRIPT – Automated by AI, please excuse typos and errors. Kelly WalkerWelcome to Hustle and Pro, I’m your host Kelly Walker. Our guest today is FC Dallas defender in Nkosi Tafari. Did I say your name close to correct? Nkosi TafariYeah, no, definitely better than 94% of population. Kelly WalkerI’ll take it. A plus. Okay, I’ll take it. Well, for those of our listeners who don’t know your name yet. You are a defender for FC Dallas. And just so you know, these are some of my favorite interviews, I think you’re my eighth FC Dallas player, so you’re in good company, Reggie, Edwin, Eddie, Ryan. Tanner, I’m going blank now and some of the others but I love talking to you guys and I’m a longtime FCD fan also so that helps make it fun, so thank you welcome and thanks for taking time to talk to me today. Of course, yeah. Thank you. So I want to just sort of start with where we are right now in your career, we’re recording this in early October and in the middle of this season, but you came to FC Dallas let’s see January 2020 I think was your when you got drafted and MLS SuperDraft. You were at with NTSC for six or so games, right, and then we started seeing you here, first Team in Frisco. And the way I see it is, there were, you know all these all these pieces of the backline were moved with Reggie leaving and then early in this season with an injury with Matt hedges and some things just sort of sit shifted and change and we started seeing you more and more. So, tell me from your perspective how did this play out for you to get to this point. Nkosi TafariThat all came together very quickly, but I, I’m more or less saw it coming together actually you could ask some of the staff members and a few guys on the team. I kept just like I was injured, maybe three separate occasions actually in pre season, I just wasn’t playing. And I was just like, yeah, Just wait till June like June is gonna be the start of my progression just I’m just waiting until June at this point, because I knew like in May, we only had one game a week at this point we were the first six games or one game a week, and I knew once we started getting into maybe two games a week. Hectic more busier schedule that other things were probably starting to change rotations would happen. So I was like, I’ll just wait till June for my progression. So then