Campus hosted African Sport Leadership Programme

Chrisna Botha-Ravyse
The Department of Sport and Recreation, within the School of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Economicsciences and Information Technology at the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University, hosted its high-profile African Sport Leadership Programme (ASLP) last week.

The event aimed to unite researchers within the field of sport and recreation, administrators, sportsmen- and women as well as professional governing bodies from across the continent. The programme is a tailor-made, needs-based leadership growth series focused on developing the aptitudes of individuals to lead the implementation of sport and physical activity related interventions as partners of multi-sectorial groups and teams operating on various levels.

The African Sport Leadership Programme (ASLP) culminated in a gala dinner that welcomed guests from all sporting disciplines, SA triathletes, Ringball, SA masters athletic athletes, coaches from hockey, swimming and netball as well as the delegates honoured with a certificate for successfully completing the course.

The week kicked of with a two-day whole brain training with Heinz and Stephan Neethling. Everyone can attest to the great asset this was to the week’s training. Even coaches that made it were impressed with the workshop. The rest of the week’s highlights featured Professor Babs Surujal who presented a unique approach to performance appraisals for sport coaches as well as Terseus Liebenberg, Olympic Javelin coach, who really inspired the young coaches sitting around the table. Terseus was also full of praise and support for the programme as it is something lacking in their training. Then Drug-free Sport created an awareness about what doping really means and what to look out for in supplement use.

Dr Bernardus van der Spuy from the ministerial office of the Sport and Recreation Department gave ASLP with the National Sport and Recreation plan.

SA Hockey coach and ambassador of this programme Sheldon Roston shared a lot of insights regarding the inner workings of coaching a national team. His wife FIH (International Hockey Fedaration) hockey umpire, Annalize Roston, shared some interesting facts about what goes on behind the scenes with hockey umpiring.

The delegates that attended the workshop all attest to the skills they learned and the value this adds to their careers as well as personal lives.

Going forward the ASLP are definitely moving from strenghth to strenght and will see more high profile coaches sharing their experiences and have delegates from all over Africa.

* This article was written by Dr Chrisna Botha-Ravyse, Senior Lecturer in the School for Economic Sciences at the NWU (Vanderbijlpark Campus) and organiser of the African Sport Leadership Programme (ASLP) that took place the past week.