Home-grown coaches should not be treated like your average spare tyre

Two WhatsApp groups in which your columnist unsuccessfully tries to maintain a quiet presence this past week delivered a sweeping rebuke of the treatment extended to home-grown national coaches. The respective WhatsApp group members were rather airily direct about the coaches of the senior women national netball team and senior men national cricket team being condemned to commuting by public transport.

In one of the groups, a screengrab of a Ugandan's haunting recognition that Fred Mugerwa uses a public service van to get to work only added to the underlying air of oddness. The She Cranes head coach had after all seemed genuinely pained when he told all and sundry that he has no recollection of having ever received a salary for his troubles. This was in August shortly after guiding Uganda to a historic fifth-place finish at the 2023 Netball World Cup in South Africa.

In true Ugandan fashion, the revelation was welcomed with a hot blush of embarrassment. Peter Ogwang, the Sports minister, emerged from that episode with a sense of resolution—to right a wrong. 

Yet, days after sharing the van with a disbelieving Ugandan, Mugerwa was met with a startling turn from the Education and Sports ministry. It made clear at the backend recently that funds will not be available to the Uganda Netball Federation in the second quarter of the current financial year if Sarah Babirye continues with her shenanigans.

Caught in the crosshairs, Mugerwa's linear story of triumph over hardship will probably continue having him travel to work on public transport.

In the other WhatsApp group, a photo of Jackson Ogwang being taken to an unknown destination on a boda boda saw the fury at the interim Cricket Cranes's employer scorch. One question recurred with awful inevitability: why has Ogwang not been extended the same privileges his predecessor enjoyed? 

Just in case you do not know, Ogwang's predecessor is Lawrence Mahatlane. During his three-year stint as Cricket Cranes head coach, the South African coach, who exuded a careful, coaxing charm, appeared to be capable of bending time to his will. The Uganda Cricket Association, his erstwhile employer, consequently made available a private car to ease Mahatlane’s movements. He ended up, at times, walking on water.

Indeed, the salient thing to say about home-grown coaches asked to run the rule over national outfits is that they always get the short end of the stick. Their bosses also tend to show little patience with them.

This is not to say that home-grown coaches cannot be conceited, out of touch, and mediocre. No. We have actually seen a few of those. But for the most part they have refined manners and ability to go with. Yet they are always presented with a series of impossible choices.

While the presence of car keys in their pockets should not be treated as the ultimate yardstick, it calls attention to a number of tangibles and intangibles alike. Take Milutin 'Micho' Sredojević. When the Serb was in the SC Villa dugout from 2001 to 2004, he had a personal car at his disposal. Upon replacing him at Villa Park, no such privilege was extended to Sam Timbe. 

Your columnist vividly remembers Timbe leaving the Mandela National Stadium on foot to hail a public service van on Jinja Road. Villa had just ceded the 2005 league title to Police FC after an enthralling shootout under the Namboole lights. What if aggrieved Villa fans pounced on Timbe under the cover of darkness as he walked that short distance to hail a van? 

Timbe needed to have been treated just as Villa did Micho. Ditto Ogwang and all home-grown coaches.