By Emmanuel C. Thorli
The announcement by the Ministry of Higher Education and NSA that they will be reactivating the Inter University/College Games Committee, made up of representatives from the ministry and the National Sports Authority (NSA), for college athletes is a step in the right direction, leading us to ask, ‘What took so long?’
The relationship between schools/universities and sports is well documented, with schools being the breeding or training grounds for future sports stars. While talented sportspeople can be spotted in a lot of ways, probably the best way to spot and nurture such talents is to catch them young and in school. Think of the likes of basketball legend Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon (basketball), Carl Lewis (track & field), Phelps (swimming), and Simone Biles (gymnastics). All of them were sensational college student athletes that ended up being dominant personalities in their respective sporting disciplines. They are all retired, well off, and can manage their affairs well owing to their college training.
The student athlete enjoys the best of both worlds: not only is he/she a great and talented sports prospect, he/she is also a great prospect for employment in his/her choice of study/profession. While in school their fees are paid by the scholarships the schools offer talented student athletes.
Done right, the prospect of a student becoming a professional sportsperson is great, with the added advantage that once the athlete hangs his/her boots, he/she will still be able to get gainful employment or manage his or her money and affairs well. This is especially true of athletes that either get injured in the course of their work or failed to live up to the team’s/fans’ expectations and are eventually dropped by the team.
Such an athlete, who apart from his/her athletic talent was also a great student, will find it easy to carry on and make ends meet after his or her sporting career.
One of the most embarrassing things that can happen to talented athletes is their lack of command of international languages, for example English, including their inability to properly express themselves during interviews. This is not so for the student athlete who is expected to perform above a certain grade point average to remain eligible to play sports in varsity.
The future for sports in such a country with an active intervarsity sporting culture, such as we see in US colleges, is more professional players, more sponsorship for sports, and a growing sports culture across the country. While not all of us are endowed to be smart or clever in school, at least we can all manage to be able to read and write enough to get by. One of the many spill-over effects of this sporting culture is a healthy nation who tries to stay as healthy as their sports heroes.
It can be safely said here that the majority of sports personalities that are world famous today from the major sporting nations were all student athletes from as early as high school. Such students are scouted, nurtured, educated and trained almost daily until they become masters at what they do even before making it to the professional ranks.
What is now left is for the ministry and the NSA to come up with that grade point average all student athletes are supposed to maintain or else risk not participating in sports; at least not in college, as some students have made it straight from high school to the professional ranks. For example, US basketball superstar, LeBron James was such a dominant basketball player including his 6 feet, 9 inches frame. As our nation is slowly grappling with growing recreational drug abuse, sports and athletes can play a very key role in dissuading people from using drugs and to instead live a healthy drug-free life.
Suffice to say, this is one issue that is not going to be partisan as all sitting governments will be expected to make budgetary concessions to sporting disciplines until such disciplines and athletes would have matured enough to make that discipline so popular that private sponsors will have no choice but to jump on the bandwagon. The idea of any sitting government claiming gravy points for the success of any sporting discipline in Sierra Leone is absurd as it takes real credit from where it should be given: the athletes, the coaching staff, management and the fans.
By going back to intervarsity sports competition our country is making it clear that we do have a lot of budding talents that need some direction so they can make the best decisions for their sports and educational careers going forward.
The commercialisation of sports will surely be a great revenue collection opportunity for this country, and a chance to stamp Sierra Leone on the international sporting scene. We could even see students and student athletes from other countries studying in Sierra Leone to be a part of this great varsity sporting culture. Imagine the revenue generation capability of such a scenario. While we applaud the Ministry of Sports and NSA for this, we also call on all governments of Sierra Leone and all patriotic local and international businesses operating here to give massive support to such an endeavour as sports and team competition breed patriotism, which can easily be transformed into patriotic nationalism. Remember how united we were during Leone Stars almost dreamlike run through AFCON Cameroon. That unity will eventually morph into us unifying for the general good on any issue that would affect us as a nation.