CAMPUS NEWS
The need to rekindle our
National Pride
“
Annette Willemse
“South Africa needs more than 90
minute patriots.” This is according to
Dr Danny Jordaan, the President of
the South African Football Association (SAFA) and keynote speaker
during the Vaal Triangle Campus’s
recent celebratory public lecture.
The lecture – focusing on the role of
sport and education in nation building, forms part of the Campus’s ten
year anniversary celebrations.
According to Dr Jordaan, South Africa’s journey towards total transformation is still ongoing and although
great strides have been made thus
far, the quest for a non-racial and
non-sexist country continues. During his address he said that sport
represents a key transformation
driver and that in combination with
education it has the potential to
change civil society for the better.
He started his lecture by addressing
the Sport Science students of the
Campus by saying that the solution
to South Africa’s coaching dilemma
could be solved through their commitment and dedication. “Maybe
the real coaches are sitting in front
of me,” he said and continued to
explain that to serve as a technical director in SAFA a person must
have obtained a master’s degree.
“We find ourselves in a situation
where some coaches are not even
IT literate and we need to be honest
with one another when we say that
we cannot try again with the current crop of players. For the sake of
nation building and pride we need
to rebuild the national team from
scratch and only then will we be
able to qualify in 2018 and most
definitely in 2022. Complete your
studies, because we are waiting for
you.”
According to Dr Jordaan the newfound patriotism that was evident in
South Africa during 1995 when the
Springbok squad won the Rugby
World Cup, in 1996 when South
Africa won the Africa Cup of Nations Tournament and again in 2010
when we hosted the Soccer World
Cup was short lived. He is of the
opinion that transformation – not
only in terms of national teams, but
also in society at l