WINDHOEK – Sports icon, Frank Fredericks, is calling for the revival of schools sports if Namibia is to reclaim its rightful place among the finest sporting nations in the global village.
The Namibian internationally acclaimed sprinter was responding to a question posted by New Era Sport during a press briefing in Windhoek yesterday, to comment on Namibia’s inability to unearth young and raw talent since his generation.
Without hesitation, the former Black Africa goal poacher and blue-eyed boy minced no words and put the blame on the declining standards and patchy performance of local athletes squarely on the shoulders of the lacklustre competitive edge so freely displayed in schools sports.
“For starters, I would like to suggest that all schools in our midst should be obliged to reintroduce physical education and make it a compulsory subject for all learners from primary level up the highest level.
“We were somehow lucky and privileged in the sense that we were blessed with committed teachers, who went out of their way to take aspiring athletes through the ropes despite their limited knowledge. As students, we had a variety of sporting disciplines to pick and choose from with facilities (though a bit sub-standard) readily available.”
Fredericks was laterally born with a silver spoon in mouth, as he excelled in almost everything he laid his hands on. Apart from his exploits in both rugby and athletics, he excelled in football for his boyhood club Black Africa and also represented his native land in the highly competitive South African Provincial Impala Cup.
His goals propelled South West Africa (SWA) to victory in the biannual edition of South Africa’s amateur premier competition in 1984. “The only workable solution to get our athletes flourish is to knuckle down to serious business and reignite life into sport at schools level.
“At the moment, I think rugby is doing quite okay at schools level but the other codes are lagging far behind in this aspect because if one looks back at domestic football in years gone by, many of the leading clubs used to draw the bulk of their playing personnel from schools, which is sadly not the case anymore in the modern era.”