UOC pass out 370 sports administrators

Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) passed out another 374 students to take their total of trained sports administrators and managers to over 2000 in the last seven years of capacity building.

The 2022 Sports Administrators Course (SAC) was completed by 300 students while the Advanced Sports Management Course (ASMC) class had 74 finishers at the lively graduation ceremony held at the UOC offices in Lugogo, on Tuesday.

George Wagogo, the programme's director at UOC, could not hide his excitement as he said "we can now see changes taking place in federations."

Poked to give further empirical evidence of how the courses have changed sports leadership in the country, Wagogo noted that "federations that in the past operated with no strategic plans or governance structures have since pit them in place.

Of course things are not being implemented 100 percent but we will get there," he added praising the leaders that run woodball, basketball, netball, university sports, badminton and tennis as those leading the way in implementing knowledge from the programme.

Davita Mable Birungi, the assistant administrator and acting records officer for dance sport, described the course as "so impactful".

Best students 

"There is good knowledge to pick from every module especially for someone like me who is volunteering. I have implemented most of the notes on building a strategic plan and planning events," Birungi, who was the best female student, told Daily Monitor.

It seems the best students are those who are already in implementation mode as Uganda Swimming Federation (USF) vice president (technical) and Dolphins coach Tonnie Kasujja shared his mission of "encouraging more people from swimming joining the course."

"Our federation is one of the growing ones but we need more people on board to reach the level where we can be appreciated.

We have trying to improve our conflict resolution mechanisms, developing a strategic plan (2024 - 2028) and governance structures by puting up a fully functional office. Before these courses came, we basically had volunteers running USF," Kasujja, the best male student, said.

Commitment test
 
Meanwhile, one of our sub editors Innocent Ndawula was also one of those that excelled with flying colours.

"It is a tough course that desires weird dedication and sacrificing trips to do assignments, extra course works and having discussion times.

I had to do sleepovers for presentations to pull it off considering my daily schedule," Ndawula shared.

But he could not do it without the considerably combining forces with Cricket Cranes team manager Jackson Kavuma to do coursework and the dissertation while on duty in Bulawayo, Jersey (July) and Nigeria (October).