Varsity Sports – a platform where students can excel
Varsity Sports has commenced with its second edition in six sporting codes.
THE second edition of Varsity Sports will prove to be even a greater success than the first.
“This is a platform that any student can use to enhance his sporting skills,” said Duitser Bosman, CEO of the Varsity Sports program. “We are having huge success in the Varsity Rugby, and now we offer our students this opportunity as well as the universities more codes to participate in.
“In 2013 we saw what difference it made in this competition, where eight universities have to qualify to send their teams to participate in.”
Varsity Sports has already kicked off with the Varsity Rugby finals, played and won by Ikeys when they beat Pukke on their home ground 39-33 in the most peculiar fashion to emerge as Varsity Rugby 2014 champions.
The second athletics meeting took place at the University of Johannesburg on Monday April 14, while the other codes will commence in due time. Apart for athletics, mens’ and womens’ hockey, netball, soccer, rugby sevens and beach volleyball will be the order of the day.
All these sports will be televised by SuperSport on Monday evenings, while the students get the chance to support their teams at the events.
“We have taken the concept from the USA College sports, which have tremendous support in college towns and cities and have proven to be an economic multiplier which has allowed colleges to fund themselves. Varsity Sports is a high-performance competition platform that enables South African universities to compete against one another in six different sporting codes in the South African way.
“Students can look forward to this experience and apart from the competition, there is also students in the various codes who received bursaries for their efforts and can now study while they are also competing in their favourite sport.”
Varsity Sports is only for bona fide students and has an age restriction of up to 25 years of age.
The full program kicked off on March 21 and lasts until April 28 in Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom, Stellenbosch and Pretoria. Men’s hockey will be from May 3 to 19 at Wits University in Johannesburg, Stellenbosch, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg (UJ). This will be followed by a comprehensive soccer programme from July 21 to September 15; netball from September 15 to October 20, rugby sevens, and beach volleyball from November 28 to 30.
Most of the universities have signed up for the challenge. The list includes the universities of Limpopo; Free State (Kovsies); Pretoria (Tuks); Stellenbosch (Maties); Northwest University (Pukke); Rhodes University; the University of the Western Cape and Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ). More universities are expected to join the fray as popularity surges.
Varsity Sports team are confident of adding even more of the ‘wow’ factor to student sports. Last year Zark Visser did it with the second-longest jump of the year at a Varsity Sports meeting and went on to excel in the international arena.
“Our launch last year was great for our athletes and sponsors alike. Varsity Sports really got off the ground running,” said Bosman. “We used the Americans as our benchmark, where every event is a fan-filled, full-day occasion. The fans range from students and alumni, kids of all ages and their parents, to people who simply love sport and like to soak up the atmosphere. Business people associated with sport and the college are a great source of donations.”
With over a million students currently studying at universities in SA, the numbers are there to take ‘Sportainment the Varsity Sports way” into its second bumper year.
