Sports director remains passionate about coaching

“When you do anything, do it with passion and to the best of your ability.” These are the sentiments of 28-year-old director of sport at Kingsway High School, Waldo Preston who has been coaching various sporting codes for the past 10 years.

He has also hosted numerous sporting days and tournaments for schools across South Africa over the years.  Waldo’s journey at the school began in 2017 and he has never looked back since.

Speaking to the SUN, the passionate coach described his work environment as positively challenging and said, “It’s incredibly satisfying to interact with the learners and staff members and working with an incredible and dynamic principal such as Mrs du Toit which enables one to grow as an individual and as a leader.  The most interesting, and  in my opinion, the best part of being able to coach and interact with the learners is to see how different they are outside of the classroom. The sports field is their way to express themselves more freely, one gets to know a different side of your players. Every person working at a school should at least once be on a very early morning sports bus and join them for the day’s excursion. The learners are champions.”

Waldo brings a lot of experience and drive to the school.

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“It’s highly advisable to get coaching qualifications behind ones name. Coaching certain age groups at school and provincial level require a specific coaching level or grading. Apart from a sports management or sport science degree, it’s always a good idea to do short courses on sporting basics such as, sport strapping, sports massaging, sports nutrition, etc,” he said.

He describes himself as being as local as he can be since he has lived in Toti for his whole life.

When asked what precautions he is taking in terms of the lockdown level three, he said, “As instructed by our president about keeping one’s facemask on in public areas, keeping at least 1.5m distance between yourself and others, washing or sanitizing of one’s hands. At school, we have drawn up a very detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) of what is expected of each staff member to ensure the safety of ourselves and especially our grade 12 learners followed by the remaining grades during the return to school time,” he added.

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In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, gym training and cooking while, his favourite sports are rock and surf angling is my favourite.

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