Where do talented players go after high school?
What you need to know:
- Who would have thought that Friends School Kamusinga, the school that has dominated hockey for as long as my memory serves me right, would finally find their match?
- Almost 600 students took part in the week-long games held in the coastal town of Mombasa.
I have tried as much as possible not to start my blog this week with the fact that Narok Boys High School have broken the dominance of Friends School Kamusinga in the Secondary Schools’ national hockey games.
Yes, you read right… Narok Boys High School. Needless to mention, the school comes from near my ancestral home and it is the reason I feel jumpy as I carefully tap each key on this keyboard.
Who would have thought that Friends School Kamusinga, the school that has dominated hockey for as long as my memory serves me right, would finally find their match?
I clearly remember, back in my days in high school (Quite some time it has been), the mention of the name Kamusinga as opponents would scare us to our bones. They were dreaded. On the opposite, we knew it was a walk in the park if we were paired with Narok Boys.
However, the tables have turned, new champions have emerged! In the Girls category as well, St Johns Kaloleni emerged as the new queens of the girls’ game.
Well, I am not entirely talking about hockey in particular but on all of the disciplines at the just concluded Term One games; basketball and rugby included.
Almost 600 students took part in the week-long games held in the coastal town of Mombasa.
FORMER GRADUATES
Looking back, some of the greatest names in Kenyan football have emerged from these games; Dennis 'The Menace' Oliech, MacDonald Mariga, Victor Wanyama among others, were products of these games. But the question lingers, are there more of them that we are ignoring down there?
Most recently, former Shimba Hills High School star forward Taudencia Katumbi left the country on a sports scholarship in the USA. Katumbi, who helped Shimba Hills to win national and regional schools basketball titles before joining Co-op Bank last year, is set to join Wiley College in the US on a four-year scholarship.
Having attended quite a number of these school games, I can comfortably say that there is more talent than can be imagined. Question is, after they represent their schools in these games, do their talents die a natural death?
The likes of Strathmore University, Kenya Pipeline, Kenya Prisons volleyball teams as well as Kenyan Premier League side Thika United use these games to scout talent. But is it enough? In an era where we are looking at youth as the future of sports, more of our sports entities should be flowing into these games to tap this talent.
POOR STANDARDS
The standards of hockey and basketball in the country have been slightly on the decline in the last couple of years. Why don’t we invest in the youth who graduate from the high school annually, equip them and ensure we remain competitors in the continental and global scene?
I am not trying to say that education is bad, but at the same time, not everybody was meant to excel in books. Schools should support their teams in all competitions they take part in because you never know where God intended one to be. If all of us were intellectuals boasting of white collar jobs, the world would be a very boring place!
Even as we ensure that we keep the continuity of these talented players from schools, our federations should work hard to ensure that our games are attractive.
Proper management of leagues will definitely attract sponsors and where money flows, players will have motivation to wake up, work hard in training and perform during matches.
Kudos to Athletics Kenya, who have over the years ensured the country is represented by the best athletes right from the junior level to the senior teams. The fact that the World Half Marathon records for both men and women are held by Kenyans with Wilson Kipsang being the World Marathon record holder in the senior men's category shows we are heading in the right direction.
Sports pay just like any other career. However, we must ensure that we discover ways of turning clubs into business entities as opposed to just non-profit making institutions.
Most of our federations are ridden with corruption; something that has kept away many multinational corporate institutions from pouring their cash into sports locally.
We don’t need to attract these young men into sports just to earn a simple "Thank you and God bless you" after representing the country, clubs or even counties.
All sports teams in the country be it volleyball, handball, basketball, football… name them, should have a youth entity to ensure that the team is always replenished. Lack of youth structures has crippled our sports sector.
