NOA Boss Urges Grassroots Sports Dev

The President, Nigeria Olympics Association (NOA), Henry Amike, has called on the Ministry of Education to make sports in schools a compulsory vocation to engender grassroots development of sports.

Amike told newsmen in Lagos that the dearth of school sports in primary and secondary schools had made it difficult for the sports at the grassroots level.

The former national quarter-miller added that the National Sports Commission (NSC) should not be saddled with the responsibility of discovering talents at the grassroots but to groom senior athletes.

“It is very obvious that NSC cannot do all these things, talents are suppose to be from the grassroots, NSC is suppose to be the end result, but in Nigeria it’s the reverse.

“School sports must be encouraged, the school sports must be very formidable and so I appeal that we should start talking about the junior team and their development.

“Am appealing to head mistresses, principals and the Ministry of Education to make their pupils understand the benefit of sports and the prestige it can bring to them as athletes,” Amike said.

Amike, who placed eighth in the 400m hurdles event at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, called for the building of training centres and regular refresher courses for coaches.

He advocated that more training centres should be provided at affordable prices as well as gymnasium with qualified coaches to help develop sports at the grassroots.

“Until we start doing things right we will keep getting same result,” he said.