The last day of the 2008 Masters tournament in the City of Tshwane turned out to be an emotionally filled affair. It began with a game for 3rd and 4th place in the 30 to 39 years old division between “White Eagles” and “LOP All Stars”. As if to set the tone for the rest of the day, this game was a close affair that was eventually won by the “White Eagles”. In the second game of the day, the serious ladies competition saw the Natal team “Sharkettes” battle it out to a victory against a team from Mozambique called “Radio National A” to clinch 3rd place for the tournament. This game was followed another cross border tussle between “Coastal Sinners (RSA)” and “Dinossauros (Moz)” in the 50 years and more category which was won by Dinossauros. Continue reading »
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.
The Ekhuruleni Basketball Association (“EBA”) has asked us to publish the attached letter that they sent to the Gauteng Basketball Association (“GBA”) regarding how the Kasi Tour was managed and run.
By publishing this letter to the public, the EBA wishes to demonstrate how proper grievance procedures can and should be followed, and also hope to show that in this way, organisational problems can be addressed, both provincially and nationally.
Information supplied by Joseph Mangadi
Click here for the document: Press release – Kasi tour complaint
SA’s basketball team sadly didn’t get anywhere near the Olympic games in Beijing, and from the looks of the poll results alongside (so far), it seems there are no high expectations for 2012 either.
However, SA basketball does have a chance at a gold medal this year. The SA Wheelchair Basketball team will be travelling to Beijing to take part in the 2008 Paralympics, after having won at the 2007 All Africa Games.
There was a good article on the team in the May 2008 edition of SA Sports Illustrated that gives more information, but unfortunately we could not locate an online copy to direct you to. If you can, get a copy and read it.
A lot has been said to the players, administrators, officials and coaches about the “governance” of basketball yet concrete evidence and information is hardly available to support what’s been said by various BSA stakeholders. The South African basketball mandate doesn’t know how the hierarchy of sport and governance in South Africa and the world in general operates; including the running of various sports federations.
I was browsing the internet recently when I came across a very interesting document that I thought I had to share with the rest of South Africa… It goes a long way in explaining the events that led to the demise of the PBL and hopefully our administrators learn from this sequence of events. Please note that this is not a recent article, I think that it was written sometime in 1999 but I am not sure. I am also not sure about the source of the article.
For five years, from 1994 to 1998, the professional PREMIER BASKETBALL LEAGUE (PBL) produced high quality games around the country, which were featured on National peak-hour sports programs, raising public awareness of the Sport of Basketball to levels previously unknown. Praised by most, vilified by some, the time has come to take an honest look at the facts, and to establish whether any of the allegations made against the PBL were justified or not.
