By Ken Bediako
This is a rejoinder by a reader on the recent article I wrote on the Science and Maths Quiz and schools sports.
“Today’s youth enjoy the celebrity type of attention and NSMQ is currently doing the trick.
“How can school sporting activities bring such niche that those students are looking for to work extra hard?
“If we are measuring the success of the NSMQ on mere TV and social media ratings? Then, I think live TV/Social media is rather doing the trick and we must also invest in those (the) technology and its infrastructure as well in the supposed school sports… Else the students may resort to TikTok and other social media to show their individual talents… My take”.
Even though this rejoinder on the whole tried to trivialise the issue by asking how schools sports can galvanise students to work harder. But in the very first paragraph the writer asserts emphatically that the youth of today adored celebrities and that’s why the programme is catching up so well with them.
But I submit that sporting heroes are arguably the most adored celebrities worldwide. In fact, they are immortals if you like.
From Jesse Owens in the early thirties to Usain Bolt in this millennium you can count real celebrities of track and field whose names are written in letters of gold. On the local front names of departed footballers like Baba Yara, Robert Mensah; Aggrey Fynn, Chris Briandt are well known not to mention living legends like Osei Kofi, Mfum, Abedi Pele, Asamoah Gyan and numerous others that can fill a whole book.
I am not even talking about global super stars like Ronaldo (Brazil and Portugal) Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson and the rest.
School sports in the country has produced international stars like Stan Allotey, Sam Bugri, Ohene Karikari, Ohene Frimpong, Rose Hart, Alice Anum, Hannah Afriyie, Malik Jabir, Jones Attuquayefio, E A Quaye, Okine Quaye, Ethel Jacks and Co. I submit that schools’ sports in the past laid quite a solid foundation for sports development. It’s true the youth admire celebrity status and that’s why outstanding students’ sports practitioners are highly admired and given all sorts of heroic nicknames. I remember in my student days at Abuakwa State College, Kyebi, athletes had special tables at the dining hall and were privileged to have special diet additives like glucose marmite and high definition palm oil. Interco as was popularly known was an event many students looked up to just like the current NSMQ.
The youth haven always admired celebrity status from time immemorial. The current technological advancement has only helped to expand their vision with smart phones that can bring the celebrities they adore closer home.
I challenge the National Sports Authority to team up with the Ministry of Education to bring back the national schools and colleges sports and the nation will benefit a lot from the catch them young policy that was successfully implemented by the first National Sports Director Ohene Djan who beautifully exploited the youthful exuberance of students to achieve a lot for Ghana sports.
Ohene Djan knew how to whip the enthusiasm of the youth the give of their best. I recall an occasion when Ohene Djan on behalf of President Nkrumah presented a pair of running shoes to top athlete Owusu Mensah at the Speech and Prize giving day at Prempeh College in Kumasi. You can imagine how elated the young student athlete became.
When Francis Selormey became Sports Director in the late sixties, he also did well with school sports.
Former table tennis star Ebo Bartels will tell you of his student days at Suhum Sec Tech when the Sports Council brought a whole chauffeur driven car to pick him up for a table tennis training tour of China. It was a big event in the school as the headmaster summoned the whole school to give him a fitting farewell.
The students were extremely excited with Ebo Bartels’ celebrity status. I believe a large number of Ghanaians have been students before and the love for celebrity status has been around since Adam. The big difference now is the advancement in hitech where you can see whatever is happening in the world in your living room by the switch of a button.
Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.
