Okuye’s big  ambition to take baseball to Olympics

You talk of playing multi sports, how does that come about?
As a young man, I played basketball right from high school in Namiryango College, St Peter’s College Tororo and Kyambogo College where I was attached to Kyambogo Warriors. At Kyambogo, I was teammates with Ambrose Tashobya, the former president of the Uganda basketball federation. I then got taken into rugby and I represented Uganda at the Safari Sevens as a school’s team of Kyambogo College. Then I also joined Kobs Rugby Club through Boks.

In rugby, we won the BAL in Nairobi in the Safari Sevens while in basketball, there used to be a popular competition sponsored by Sprite and I managed to reach the finals with St Peter’s College Tororo in 2000. That is how far I went with sports. That was the same time I was joining university where I was very active in basketball. I remember we were among the pioneers of the university league in basketball.
 
How then did you get into baseball?
When I was in Kyambogo College School, baseball was attached to the school. Interestingly I found Kyambogo College very active in sports because I remember handball was at a high level, so was basketball and baseball. When we began introducing rugby, we were looking for suitable students to recruit into the rugby team. Interestingly, we managed to recruit a number of boys who were playing baseball. As we were introducing them to rugby, they were introducing me to baseball. Somehow, baseball being such a technical sport, I didn’t get time to learn it immediately. So, from then I have been so close to baseball and softball support where possible. When opportunity came for new leadership in 2020, I offered myself for the leadership of the federation. My call was to offer governance and management in order for us to make sports more impactful and productive.
 
Talking about the presidency, what was your main mission?
First of all, my maiden mission was to bring harmony into the sport. At the time, there seemed to be many forces who were pulling each other. Many people were disrespecting each other with less focus on the development of the sport. This was mainly because people did not understand the dynamics of sports federation administration and management. 

I noticed that one aspect was disrespectful to the regulations by the governing National Council of Sports (NCS). Players and coaches may not be so knowledgeable of these regulations but the leaders failed to pick certain things to be able to create harmony. I had to begin approaching all stakeholders for them to appreciate the value of building our sport. Coaches and umpires had been side-lined and there was a risk of them running away from the sport. 
Unfortunately, the pandemic came up in March and we went underground. Ever since we came in leadership, we have managed to harmonise many of the stakeholders and I am proud to say that the unity today is very high. On the scale of 1-10, I rate us at nine.

Which of your activities were greatly affected by the pandemic?

Our playing time was affected the most leaving us with only to strategise and re-engineer our direction in the process we have taught coaches and umpires online. When the initial opening happened in 2020, we were disturbed by the Standard Operating Procedures. They were way too expensive for us. Remember, we are among those federations that survive on donations with our major hope and expectation being government. The competition for funds could be high as there are federations ranked as high priority sports. 

We had to begin thinking of how to move forward. A lot of new things have come up through partners. As such, we managed to have a maiden activity in February dubbed as the pre-league to assess the situation of players. Remember baseball and softball are rooted in schools yet the schools have been closed under the lockdown guidelines. During the pre-league tournament we realised a lot about the Covid-19 pandemic in our activities. We realised that the pandemic had scattered most of the players. So, most of our clubs could not have their players available. Amidst that period, we entered into the second lockdown. 

By the time the President opened up the sports and gave the parameters of operating, we came up with our maiden All Stars Championship which just ended at the beginning of October for softball and baseball in the middle of September. What we decided to do was to pick the best players countrywide and bring them to the bubble with negative PCR results. We got all our top star coaches and we created all-star teams through round-robin format to have the championship at Nakirebe Complex at AVRS School. This gave us room to know the state of the game after the two weeks of play. Remember we are also picking the national team. We saw who was up to the skill and tenacity to represent the national team.
After the All-Star Championship, we now proceeded to the baseball introduction clinics under the theme of 42 which was the shirt number of the legendary baseball star in Major League Baseball called Jackie Robinson. He was quite a unique player, who broke the barriers of skin colour and race to become the first Black African to be drafted into an MLB team drafted by Brooklyn Dodgers. We have been having a series of clinics in Mbarara, Tororo and now Kampala. The sport has been dormant in Mbarara. It last featured there in the late 1990s but failed to stabilise. Before the lockdown, we had been to Lira and Soroti. The previous years we were in Luweero, Lira and Lugazi. Because of the impact in northern Uganda, we have many districts playing the sport. We have Alebtong, Apac, Lira, Arua, Gulu and Soroti. We have the sport in Buikwe. The sport is spreading.

 
Uganda is ranked second in Africa, how does it compare with the popularity of the sport in the country?
When we go to the world rankings under the World Baseball and Softball Confederation, little as Uganda is, we have managed for several years to shape up a national team which is very competitive. We have consistently managed to identify high quality talented boys and girls. We have been to the Little League World Series, which is one of the most prestigious U15 baseball championships in the world. We have also represented Africa and the Middle East at the World Series. We have managed to beat several African countries. We are present holders of the East African championship. The most recent was the Olympic qualifiers where we lost in the final to South Africa. Well, some of the South African players were MLB players. At the rating of the sport, they were far too superior for us.

Nevertheless, our consistent play has given us second place in both baseball and softball. It is through those rankings that the world rankings are based on. We are currently ranked 42 in the world. We have a big agenda and focus to take baseball to a higher level. We are striving to be number one in Africa. Not only being number one but we want the sport to be popular in Uganda. Through the clinics we have covered all the regions of Uganda and we are focusing an in-depth presence in all the districts we have not been to. We want effective representation of all regions.
 
Looking at that objective, there is a lack of facilities to grow the sport. How do you achieve this?
We have to work within all available means to get to the desired level. We have our national stadium. When I talk about this one’s expectations get sky high. But we have grounds in Gayaza which was developed with the support of the Japanese government through JICA and we managed to partner with the Catholic Church for the land. We did not have funds to buy land and the Church supported the programme. We have almost a 7-acre space in Gayaza. We are focusing on transforming that into a world class stadium in Uganda. The greatest knowledge we have is that our diamond (the baseball field), is the best in Africa in terms of standard and size. We now want to develop it with stands and changing rooms. This will give us an edge to host international teams. We are focused and we have faith that the partners we are attracting into the sport, we can get there. When it comes to the facility at Nakirebe where there is the prestigious Little League programme by the LA Dodgers, one of the biggest franchises of baseball in the world, where they are developing athletes that can be drafted, that facility can also help us achieve our agenda.
 
During the 2019 Olympic qualifiers, there were obvious gaps. How are you addressing them?
We are looking to the 2028 Olympics that will be held in Los Angeles, California, United States which is mathematically seven years from now. We want to use this drive to the Olympics to give us effective growth of the sport here in Uganda and also take us to that pinnacle of reaching the Olympics. According to the 2019 situation, the problem was not the quality of the coaches. The problem was the funding. Can you imagine we went to the Olympic qualifiers after just three days of training? Besides resources, we were struggling to have tickets for the trip. In fact our team travelled and played the opening game on the same day. That could not give us a good start. We did not also have resources to take a full squad. It was such a hard time. Eventually, we went to the qualifiers. Unfortunately, we lost in the finals to South Africa and we went on to play against Israel, who made it to the Olympics. Technically, we were one game away from the Olympics.

How many internationally accredited coaches do we have?
We have a team of about 13 coaches. We have a grassroots level, then level one up to level four. Then we also have international coaches who support the Dodgers program. They are all Level Four accredited coaches. Their presence here helps the association as they give support technically. We are right now focused on improving our coaches and increasing their numbers. We have senior players who no longer have enough playing time whom we want to interest in coaching and other technical aspects of the sport.
 
How many clubs are accredited to the association?
We have 16 clubs. Of the 16, the pandemic made most of them lose the players due to the hardships. Some players relocated. Others went looking for work to do. Remember during the pandemic all games were locked down. So continuous practice was a challenge. Most of these clubs are self-funded, so they are struggling to facilitate their activities effectively. The other factor is that most of the clubs use high school students who are not available at the moment. The focus now is on organising different championships to help them pick up. We are coming up with regional championships for a big tournament. We are expecting that this month. We are in a phase of organising the national team. In February we have qualifiers for baseball.
 
The bedrock of sport is schools, what plans do you have for school-goers especially at university level?
The quality of the schools that are active are in the primary section and secondary schools. We have championships for schools that attract more than 60 secondary schools and about 40 primary schools. Our agenda is to multiply the sport in as many schools as possible. We are hoping to have a coaching program in 2022 where we position in each district a coach who is responsible for developing 10 schools in a period of six months. We are doing this in 20 districts for the start. We shall use the community model like we do with the Jackie Robinson Legacy camps. That, in our opinion, is the most sustainable way of running sports. When you run community sports, the parents are attached to the sporting discipline, so are the community members and organisations.

For that matter, we are identifying universities where our students can be promoted to go to. We have interacted with sports officers of Uganda Martyrs University, Ndejje, Makerere, Kyambogo, Makerere University Business School and UCU. We believe this can aid continuity of the players into the professional ranks.

 
What plans do you have to professionalise baseball?
Our plan is to engage the clubs to build capacity. We want them to be positioned to attract funding to be possible to pay the players and coaches and their officials. Additionally, we have organised trials for excelling athletes. Right now we have two players; Allan Kabenge and Felix Chambala going to Japan for semi-professional trials. We also have Isaac Odongo, who is going for a university scholarship in Houston, Texas. He is going to be playing high school baseball. Knowing that his statistics are present, he could make it to Major League Baseball. Once someone is at the top, they can inspire someone down to have the aspirations to get there. With that approach, we can increase the number of professional trials elsewhere, especially Europe.
 
When do you plan to have the league back?
The league will be sustainable in the first quarter of 2022. One of the reasons that have been hindering the sustainability of the league has been the availability of the players who are in schools and attached to the clubs in those particular areas. Once we get back to that level of schools re-opening, the clubs will have their players back. We are also trying to look for league sponsors to make it more sustainable.
 
When your term is done, what legacy do you want to leave behind?
My first two years expire in December. We have a leadership model which is two year-based. There has been guidance by our international federation to have it in line with the Olympic four-year tenure. Our federation just re-organised itself in 2010. So there are many things to work on right now. But for the sake of the legacy, I want to leave an organised sustainable federation with the hope of positioning baseball and softball among the top five sports in Uganda. This is achievable. This is a sport that involves a large number of people playing at the same time. It is exciting. 

It is engaging. It is fun. Knowing those attributes of the sport, it is characteristic of the nature of the African child. At one moment, they would be throwing a stone to a bird, which is not different from the principle of pitching. At one time you see them with a stick trying to hit anything which is the same as the principle of batting. At one point you see them running somewhere with aspiration to be faster than the other. That is the principle of base running. That makes the sport similar to the social characteristics of a Ugandan child. 

Secondly, the main element of the open laying fields, is very quickly adaptable to other kinds of fields used for other sports. On the issue of equipment, we are creating our local bats. One professional bat goes for at least $300 (about Shs1m) yet we have enough wood here in Uganda. We are making some prototypes at Kireka which we are sending for analysis in terms of safety and quality of play.