Article supplied by Molupe Thelejane
The generic requirement to fix SA basketball is to improve and align the political, administrative and technical facets of the game at all levels – club, district, province & national.
All sport is governed by three fundamental aspects – the political, administrative and technical aspects. By political I refer to the policy making, decision-making, agenda setting and preference shaping dimensions – the power and context defining aspects. One who views sport predominantly through the politician’s eyes refers constantly to the constitution, always attends the AGMs, is au fait with the political climate of the country or their constituency and skillfully manipulates others to conform to a certain agenda, thus enhancing their power base.
Technical aspects in this instance refer to the on-field, practice courts, skills development and game specific strategic and tactical dimensions. The technician is solely concerned with just playing, reffing or coaching. Technicians are mainly the participants. In between the politics and the technical dimensions are the administrative functions. Administration does not just refer to sending out an e-mail reminding people of fixtures but is rather developing sustainable systems and relationships that ensure the long term wellbeing of the sport. The administrator sees the opportunities and seeks to take advantage through marketing, organizing leagues and tournaments and executing the policies that the politicians have drawn up. These are the people who ensure that secured sponsorships are correctly allocated, raise awareness of the game, etc. Whether you are involved with a small club, run a league or province or are involved with national structures, all of these fundamental aspects are part and parcel of your sporting life. What differs, according to the situation, the personalities involved and the prevalent circumstances, is the relative value placed on each aspect.
I grew up at a time when most black people used every dimension of life as a battle against apartheid. In a sporting context this meant that black-led sport was necessarily politicized. The majority of white people wanted sport depoliticized and emphasized the administrative and technical aspects of their sports. The political aspects of the sport were left to the government – something unacceptable to most black people. Even today strong remnants of those viewpoints remain. Sports such as rugby and cricket, predominantly emphasize the administrative and technical aspects. The political aspects are seen as things to do to appease the government’s more stringent requirements, and hence to many politicians are inadequate. However, in sports such as soccer and able-bodied basketball, the predominant focus is on the political aspects – the power battles, with a subsequent drop in the administrative and technical aspects. These sports are aligned with government’s representative policies but administratively and technically are not world class. Interestingly, basketball in SA has swung from being technically and administratively relatively well run with its politics being unacceptable to some, to its current state where politically it is acceptable to many but administratively and technically it is gravely in need of help. Wheelchair basketball differs somewhat from able-bodied basketball – it emphasizes admin and technical aspects more than the political.
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