Nurturing Athletic Minds

My heart sinks whenever I drive past Trinityhouse at Randpark Ridge. A private school with well-built Combi Courts and pristine, well-manicured rugby and cricket lawns. Directly opposite this is Kingsway Christian school, the structures of which are made out of shipping containers. A private school is obviously funded by the parents and I can only assume Kingsway to be supported by a church, donors and philanthropists.

The past weekend saw me spending 3 days at Reddam in Bedfordview for my son’s school hockey tournament. I was in awe of their sports grounds and facilities. I then remembered a conversation I had with someone about the Ivy League schools, the Michaelhouse, Hilton, St Mary’s, etc. These are well-rounded schools, they have a balanced outlook and performance results in both the academics and sports make you understand their exorbitant fees. As ridiculous as they sound to the 99% of the population. These are the crème de la crème. They hire retired sportsmen and women to coach, they can afford the best and therefore, they excel in most sporting codes.

Most top athletes that end up at national level are the fruits of private schooling. Those from underprivileged backgrounds go on to represent our country as a result of nurturing and having access to world class training facilities and supporting multi-disciplinary teams. The coach, the assistant, the physiotherapist, the conditioning coach, the mind coach, etc. Fact is, private schools scout for academic and sporting talent and they will offer bursaries and scholarships to the so-called gifted pupils and students.

South Africa’s 2019 budget saw the basic education being allocated with R262.4 billon in the next financial year. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said while most of this money will be used to pay teachers, government has allocated around R30 billion into building new schools and maintaining existing infrastructure. “An additional R2.8 billion is added to the School Infrastructure Backlogs grant to replace pit latrines at over 2,400 schools,” said Mboweni, in line with an undertaking by President Cyril Ramaphosa to eradicate pit latrines which have caused the deaths of several children over the past few years. Based on this, one can only assume that things such as Combi Courts and grass/astro turf fields are well at the bottom of list of priorities, understandably so. Now the question is, where is that money going to come from? Parents to fundraise? Crowd Funding initiatives, rely on generous donors and philanthropists, the corporate sector and local business to chip in?

My Humble Opinion: Imagine if a developer was made to build Combi Courts or an astro turf for every mall built. Drive around and notice the number of malls being built in the poorest of neighborhoods, I can even bet my last rand that there are more malls around townships than there are libraries. Moreover, get the private schools to open up their fields and training facilities to government schools that surround them. I believe Trinityhouse allows Kingsway to utilize their sports facilities from time to time. As for coaches for government schools, how about the newly graduated Sports Science students, the many unemployed physiotherapists, biokineticists and retired sportsmen and women who live in the communities. Surely their services can be utilized, with a little stipend obviously. It pains to watch talented kids wasting away and not having anyone to nurture their talent. Imagine our performance at the Olympics, world tournaments and World Cups if we focused our attention and efforts in nurturing our future stars…..