She Cranes, Gazelles made us dream big 

They may not have been the talk of town throughout the tournament. They may not have trended in every WhatsApp group and certainly not many opinions were made on timelines.

The star players like Mary Nuba may still walk the streets of Kampala unrecognized. Yet that shouldn’t be the case. Dressed in the black, yellow and red jerseys, the She Cranes wowed everyone at the recent netball World Cup in Cape Town in South Africa becoming the number one team in Africa and fifth in the world!

What a fete! How they made us so proud! How they conquered the continent and almost the entire world!

As the She Cranes was doing their thing, nearly 4,000km away, in Kigali, Rwanda, another national women’s team, the Gazelles, was ‘wreaking havoc’ in the AfroBasket, a continental basketball competition. They finished 7th in the competition, their best performance ever.

Up north in Morocco, St Noa Girls Secondary School Zzana was teaching English and German schools how soccer is played in the Football World School Championship only to lose their semifinal game to eventual winners China. They ended up bringing a bronze medal home.

Football, even at the men’s level, isn’t that developed in Uganda; so, to have a girls’ team from Uganda beating “Football Made in Germany” is stuff of legend. Talking of China, Dismus Yeko won gold in the men’s 10,000 metres final at this summer’s World University Games in Chengdgu in China. Knight Aciru walked away with silver medal in the women’s 800m finals at the same games.

At the Africa Boxing Championship in Yaoundé in Cameroon, the Bombers won two silver and five bronze medals and some few thousands of dollars for their effort.

In the United States, Ibrahim Kasule has been scoring goals for fun since joining Ibrahim Sekagya-coached New York Red Bulls II team, which competes in the Major League Soccer Next Pro division. Kasule was his club’s player of July to the delight of his coach, former Cranes captain Sekagya. It has been a good ‘summer’ for Uganda sports and continues to show the potential that we may have across board.

Most of this success is not attributable to strategic national planning and involvement. Many times, sports people do it their way without any national support walking the breadth of Kampala to find anyone who can give them an air ticket to participate in the event.

During training, stories have been told of boxers training with shared gum shields or footballers not having shin guards or even footballs yet they are expected to compete with the well-oiled national teams. Sometimes when they win or do so well, a luxurious state dinner is organized in their honor where the competitors are seeing some of the dishes for the very first time in their lives!

Politicians and their technical officers then give glowing speeches, making some pledges they know they won’t fulfil before going back to their routines. For many years, we have known the potential we have in Kapchorwa and what proper training facilities and technical support would do to enable us have several world beaters in athletics but we have left everything to God.

If we strategically invested in athletics there, we would create many world stars and thousands of jobs for generations. The first thing though is to bring back sports in schools and make it mandatory for schools to get involved in regional and national competitions. St Noa Girls SS Zzana and a few other schools involved in sports are doing it not because it is a requirement.

It is either because the school owners love the sport or it is one of the ways through which to market the schools. Otherwise, there are many schools, some with even better resources, not interested at all in any sports or simply organizing a few competitions among their learners. Yet it is in schools that talent can easily be recognized and nurtured.

As Uganda increasingly urbanizes, community sports grounds are being turned into jungles of concrete because the land was largely privately owned. As land values go up, the owners sell the land and the community sportsground ceases to exist. Individuals with interest in sports cannot afford to set up community teams which can compete beyond a promise of a goat by an aspiring member of parliament.

Can we attract some investment in sports so we have professionally organised teams at the grassroots? The government can guarantee a return for the investors on set targets such as winning global competitions, selling players to top academies or even Saudi leagues.

djjuuko@gmail.com

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant.