Musings from a longstanding sports enthusiast

15.06.10

By Thabiso Tema

The count-down continues and excitement is reaching an all-time high, with less than a month to go to the biggest sporting event ever staged on African soil. The FIFA World Cup, South Africa 2010 as it is officially known, gets underway on Friday 11th June 2010. The staging of this massive event in South Africa is a source of great excitement and pride for me, not just as a sports broadcaster but also as sports fanatic. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been crazy about sport, with football being top of the list.

For me school always got in the way of my sporting activity! I strongly believe that I would have been a professional sportsman, had I not been distracted by school. When I was in primary school we had a few sporting codes to choose from depending on the season. In the summer months we had football (there I used that word) and netball (for the girls and Ernest) athletics; and later on when I moved to a “multi-racial” school we also had tennis, swimming , rounders and even chess (yes chess is a sport). In winter we had football, football and more football plus netball for the girls…and Ernest. I took part in all of these sports with the exception of netball. I always tried for the sports teams but the best I ever managed was the football B side, in which I played right back.

Here my mother should shoulder part of the responsibility for the failure of my football career, because she refused to buy me a pair of football boots. Playing in my suede North Star tackies severely retarded my development! Apart from football I was also mad about athletics. Here too, success was limited. I remember vividly my last trials for the school track team, when I reacted slowly to Mr Moabi’s whistle and ended up coming third behind “Chubby Ofentse” in the 100 meter dash (it was probably more like 75 meters). Only the first two were selected and I was forever mocked by “Chubby” Ofentse.

High School for me was sporting heaven. There were so many different codes to choose from and yes you guessed it, I played them all with exception of netball of course. I loved sports days, especially the inter-house athletics. In my first year in high school I entered the discus and the 800 meters. I don’t remember where I finished in the discus but the 800 meters turned out to be my last ever track race. I arrived at the starting line to find out that the race had now been declared “open” since there were not enough entries from the juniors and intermediate boys. So this meant I had to run with the seniors. I kept in touch with the big guys for the first 15 meters but then they just took off! As I reached the final 200 meters I looked behind me and realised there was no one there, and just ahead of me was the only other junior who was silly enough to run against the seniors. It was “Chubby” Ofentse! I couldn’t let this happen again! I engaged the after-burners and flew past Chubby Ofentse. As I raced down the home stretch I could faintly hear someone screaming my name.

This is not usually a good sign because it means you’re clearly not running that fast. Anyway I finished a respectable second last. Waiting for me just beyond the finish line was the crazed fan who had been screaming my name. It was my Uncle Benni, who at this point was killing himself with laughter! Anyway after that humiliating experience I decided to hang up my track North Stars for good. I then became Mr Newbury’s able and trusted assistant at the starting line. I was always in awe of the great sprinters at our school. I would watch with envy as Benedict Gill  Mmabatho High School’s best athlete ever, grabbed the baton to anchor the 4x100 meters relay for the Yellow House, winning by what seemed a country- mile. Benito was an awesome athlete who excelled at every sport he played. As if that wasn’t enough he was also a very good looking guy. But you can’t have it all; he was as thick as Yogi Sip and never had any luck with the girls! So there!

The truth is for me sport was always just about having fun. I played because I enjoyed it. I was never in it to win the big prizes. This is why I never really liked the team sports, where someone always had to be blamed when the team lost. Whenever I showed up for trials the other more superior players thought I was just there to fool around. And I think that the coaches also always had this impression of me because I was always the class clown you see. Perhaps if I had taken myself a little bit more seriously, I might have actually achieved something on the sports field.
Sport is fantastic medium to teach children discipline and the virtues of team work. It also cultivates a healthy lifestyle and given the perils of modern-living, can certainly help keep them out of trouble.

The advent of professional sport also means that children can one day actually make a very tidy living from sport. But for me the most important thing about sport particularly among young people has always been that it should be fun. Through all the ups and downs and humiliations and despite the lack of accolades and medals, I never stopped enjoying sport. That is why to this day and forever, sport will remain an important part of my life.

The greatest achievers in sport will all tell you the same thing about why they ultimately decided to retire. “I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore!” So as the biggest show of them all draws ever close, let your kids go out there and enjoy the World Cup, let them admire the skills of the greatest footballers on earth, and most importantly , let them go out there and play, for the love of the game!!