By Aloysius Byamukama
The Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) has moved a step towards achieving its major objective of enabling all students in schools to discover and exercise their talents.
This, the association has done by including Basketball 3*3 to be competed for by schools during the ball games.
According to USSSA president Patrick Okanya, the unique sport has been included in the Ball Games II category because of the recent successes Uganda has registered at the international level.
“It’s a conglomeration of several aspects that we reached the decision. First, it’s our interest that every student gets an opportunity to showcase their talents in different sports disciplines. It’s also an exciting sport and even then winning the ISF U15 boys’ title was a motivation,” Okanya said.
Last year, Uganda took part in the International Schools Sports Federation (ISF) games in Belgrade, Serbia and Uganda boys’ basketball 3*3 team beating the hosts to the event gold was the major highlight of the nation’s 9th overall finish of the 36 countries with 7 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze.
USSSA has already identified 6 girls and 6 boys that started preparations in the same sport, ahead of the ISF U-18 games due in Normandy, France in May this year.
Uganda is among the top five nations that play basketball 3*3 on the African continent with Uganda clubs and universities having competed for both at the regional and continental level with the latest having been the national U16 team’s participation in the FIBA Africa Championship in Cairo, Egypt last year.
This year’s USSSA national competitions are scheduled for April/May with the Fresh Diary games (Girls football, basketball, racket games (tennis, table tennis and badminton), Rugby 15s and Hockey) and Copa Coca Cola (boys football) and ball games II (athletics, netball, rugby 7s, wood ball, boys’ U16 football, volleyball and now basketball 3*3 for July, all in the northern region at venues yet to be named