Volleyball taps young talent

By Johnson Were

THE National Volleyball Federation (UVF) has embarked on early age talent identification and promotion in a bid to compete at the international level successfully.

UVF has identified primary schools in five zones that include Entebbe, Tororo, Nkonkonjeru (Mukono), Kumi and Mbarara that will first benefit from the project and later on expand to other regions.

Edgar Karungi the Uganda Volleyball head of Schools commission told New Vision that such a project will help them identify and follow up talents.

"Our major plan is to have these talents at an early age master the basics of the sport and we follow them up to high school," said Karungi who led a team of coaches to St. James Primary School Mkumba Mpala for the training clinic.

"Yes we may have strong tall players, but there is no way we shall compete at international level when our boys don't know the basics of volleyball at early age," He added.

He explained the first beneficiary schools were identified because of their volleyball back ground and continued involvement in sports.

"We looked at the active schools in volleyball and we chose the schools so that we can add them what they don't have to improve their performance," Karungi added.

Over 24 volleyball balls were donated to the school for continued use.

The team of coaches will regularly visit the schools to continue training them according to Karungi.