Ryon Jones, Gleaner Writer

The country's two leading universities, University of the West Indies (UWI) and University of Technology (UTech), have teamed up for the inaugural UWI-UTech Sports Championship.

The championship, which will take place on September 18 at UWI, has national ramifications, according to UTech's director of sports, Anthony Davis.

"We have a very elaborate high school system but over the years when they (students) graduate, a lot of them will stop playing sports and a minuscule number will get scholarships to go overseas," said Davis.

"If we are to continue maintaining the level of success that we are experiencing now in track and field and football, or even cricket, we must have a developed collegiate system, which is the natural step after high school for persons to come into the collegiate system," he added.

Davis, while speaking at the press launch for the championship at the UWI Council Room yesterday, further believes that the collegiate level is where most athletes are ready to make the transition into senior world-class competitors.

"Most high-school persons are not at the age where their bodies can physically do the kind of work necessary to become elite athletes. By the time they become of university age and they get into the college system, that time they can carry a heavy workload," he pointed out.

Programme development

Dalton Myers, director of sports at UWI, also shares the view that intercollegiate sports is important to the development of the national programme.

"Certainly, we have seen that intercollegiate sports is important right across the world to the development of national programmes," said Myers. "What we have done is team up both UWI and UTech to create that kind of atmosphere that will push sports."

The championship will see the UWI Pelicans and the UTech Jamaica Knights compete against each other in five sporting disciplines. The five sports to be contested are Twenty20 cricket, women's volleyball, men's basketball, fastnet netball and men's football.

Myers explained the reason why these five were chosen.

"We thought about including all the sports that we compete in but because of cost and fan support, we want to get in the initial stage, we wanted to go with the five traditional sports."

There are plans to make the championship - which is slated to be an annual event with hosting responsibilities alternated between the two campuses - bigger and better.

"The plans for the future are wide and vast," said co-chairman of the organising committee, Rashid Hall. "Once this event is finished and it is a success, we will go straight back to the drawing board. We want to look at including more sports and possibly including another one or two institutions."