Former NBA star and D’Tigers captain, Olumide Oyedeji speaking at the just concluded two days Sport Impact Africa Seminar has lent his voice in enjoining government, sports stakeholders to develop school sports so as to catch the athletes early and develop them in bid to curb age cheat in Nigeria sports and allow healthy competition on the global stage.
According to him, we don’t start early enough, ‘most times, you’ll discover that we are starting at the age of thirteen, fourteen and you know like it was once said, if you don’t start carrying racket at the age of three, don’t expect yourself at any grandslam.’
‘The same thing applies to every other sports, we don’t start early and that’s why before we can pick, the only way is to go and look for those who have competed at that level of competition,’ he explained.
“My boy who plays basketball has started early enough, someone who plays four games in a day, in a month, twenty four games and he’s not even up to 12 yet. Looking at every other players, you will discover that some of them are just starting to see equipment at the age of fifteen. Even at that level, they have not being able to compete in some levels of competition.’
Speaking further, Olumide reveals that this isn’t just on the athletes alone, ‘it also happens to the footballers, we don’t start early enough and that’s why before we can compete with the rest of the world, we need to do something about it and that’s why I’m calling on every stakeholders and every parent that we need to return sport to secondary school.’
‘School Sport needs to come alive, it developed a lot of athletes for Nigeria and then we competed a lot. Inter house sports, invitational relay but now, there’s no facilities for such and that’s why a lot of people are starting late, we must work on this,’ he emphatically enjoined.
