Amateur boxing doesn’t deserve tattered cushion

But let’s just say a stroke of genius or -- to be closer to the bull’s eye -- luck ensures that the high altitude centre sees the light of day, will things be prim and proper? Maybe, maybe not. One thing you cannot deny is that Team Uganda will be sending much more than just tourists to athletics’ big global events. Whether we will build capacity to have athletes that can lift the millstone off Kiprotich’s shoulders is another thing altogether.

Thing, though, is that you have to be as calculative as you are savvy if you harbour plans of creating a dynasty. It’s prudent that one works out what their unique selling points are such that a comparative advantage can be excavated. It’s refreshing that President Museveni has finally come to the realisation that sports abound with innumerable unique selling points that can put million dollar PR campaigns (a la Gifted by Nature) in the shade. But truth be told, we need to probe deeper to ascertain our comparative advantage(s). A cursory look seems to suggest that boxing is worth a shout.
The lion’s share of our medals at the Olympics has come from perspiration in the ring. The tapestry of southpaw and orthodox boxers Uganda has churned and keeps rolling out cannot be overlooked. More than anything, we need to start giving boxing its due.
Like little termites chipping away at the roots, toxic politics has done its best to decimate the very foundation of both amateur boxing. We desperately need for this to stop forthwith. We need to start qualifying truckloads of amateur boxers to the Olympics and other such global events.

The feats this sweet science has authored for us in the past cannot simply be dismissed as anecdotage. I believe I speak for many in affirming that we need Ugandan boxing to get back on the rails just as much as we need that high altitude training centre.

So, maybe the news cycle can give this comparative advantage that is Ugandan boxing the legs that it seems to have lost. It would certainly do with Kiprotich’s pair of legs, wouldn’t it?

Schools cricket’s glass looks like it’s half empty

As is the norm in any tournament, the recently concluded Schools Cricket Week had its highlights and lowlights. Some would say the latter comfortably outnumbered the former.

You cannot fault anyone for viewing the glass as half empty as opposed to half full. The Kenneth Waiswas, Simon Ssessazis, and Derrick Bakunzis of this part of the world might have gotten us tantalisingly close to lifting our half full glasses and toasting the tournament’s health, but the eyesores were too glaring to ignore.

The multiple scores that just about managed to make it to double figures (yes, double; not triple) alerted many of us to our half empty glasses! We needed to assuage our thirst, but the schools on display -- including record champions, Busoga College Mwiri -- preferred to hand us a poisoned chalice!

Questions will inevitably beg of what exactly went wrong. Just don’t expect the answers to come in quick and fast, though. That notwithstanding, a rummage through local cricket’s closet should make one or two bloopers discernible. It’s been awhile now since the Schools Cricket Week predisposed itself to Twenty20 cricket, a high octane version of the game that sees opposing teams share -- if they are not skittled -- 40 overs.

Now, introducing impressionable cricketers (such as the ones that dot the Schools Cricket Week) to Twenty20 cricket can pose a host of pitfalls.

The pick of these pitfalls is the manner in which it hamstrings the batting side of play. Nowhere has this been more evident than in this year’s edition of the Schools Cricket Week where teams have toiled to keep the scoreboard ticking.

I have always argued that to ensure that our cricketers have a hang of batting; we have to do our utmost to encourage them to stick to the wicket. Nothing encourages one to stick to the wicket than playing the longer version of the game.
Playing the odd three-day game may well be a big ask for secondary schools, but at least they can try to cut their teeth with the 50-over game. Twenty20 cricket mixes quite a potently fatal cocktail for secondary school cricketers principally because it brings out a gung-ho streak that teaches them not to attach a price tag to their wicket. This can prove to be dangerous as we learnt at this year’s Schools Cricket Week!

What we now know....

The week that has just ended brought with it so many revelations. The permutations that a Constitutional Court injunction spewed were without doubt difficult to miss. What these permutations reaffirmed is that as Charles Dickens succinctly, if not offensively, averred in Oliver Twist, the law is, well, an ass.

We now know that a court order can spawn different meanings depending on whom you sound out. While the Uganda Super League Limited (USLL) is cocksure that the 30-day injunction Fred Muwema procured from the Constitutional Court applies to Fufa’s activities (read the Fufa Super League and the Fufa Assembly), the people at Mengo are treating this presupposition with contempt.

Thanks to this, what we know for sure is that the injunction won’t be a silver bullet. If anything, the injunction will make the slugfest between USLL and Fufa downright ugly.

Things will surely get worse before they get better. But these aren’t growing pains by any stretch of imagination. They are self-inflicted wounds authored by pure selfishness.

Ugandan football is not about to turn the metaphorical corner, this is a poignant takeaway that we got to learn in past few days.

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