WITH the University of Technology (UTech) revered as the tertiary institution for student-athletes and the GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sports as the one for students of sports, the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona has been increasingly carving out its own role.

The UWI’s director of sports Dalton Myers said: “The only period of time when our objective is to compete with UTech and GC Foster College is on the field of play. Beyond that we aim to complement what has been done by all other tertiary institutions and make our own mark as we progress.

“The recent signing of MOUs by UTech with cricket, basketball, and netball associations are also good for the country and shows that tertiary institutions are integral in sports development,” he added.

GC Foster College, meanwhile, has a proud record of providing coaches to schools and sports, even as it struggles to improve facilities at its Spanish Town-based institution.

For this semester, as at the beginning of the 2010 to 2011 academic year, UWI’s Department of Sports will seek to:

1 improve the scholarship programme;

2 increase awareness and involvement of student-athletes in the UWI Sports Programme;

3 expand the role of the sports psychologist so as to enhance the performance of our student athletes;

4 improve the netball, football, and track & field programmes;

5 facilitate development and renovation;

6 strengthen partnership with corporate Jamaica and UWI alumni;

7 seek to expand the sports-academic programme;

8 create a strategic plan for the 2011-2013.

Since 2003 the UWI has offered academic credits in netball, cricket, football and track and field, and sports courses in the Department of Government and the Institute of Cultural Studies at its Mona Campus.

Myers, who has represented UWI in both track & field and cricket, believes that the university has arrived as “an institution that is very serious about sports development.

“Our facilities rival the best in the island and our student-athletes have been successful in all disciplines at the intercollegiate and national club level competitions,” he said.

The UWI currently boast several athletes who are representing their countries, primarily Malysha Kelly, Simone Forbes, Oberon Pitterson, and St Lucian Zalika Pau in netball; Hansle Parchment, Tanice Barnett, and Barbadian Keisha Walker in track and field; Simon Jackson and Chadwick Walton in cricket; and Vishwanauth Tolan in badminton.

The UWI Football Scholarship Recruitment Festival this month and the Sports Leadership Academy are also some of the ways that the Mona Campus is developing talents in sports, along with the UWI Track and Field Invitational, UWI Pelicans Volleyball Tournament, Beach Football Classics, UWI Futsal Tournament, and UWI Football Mania summer programme, Myers pointed out.

Student development is another area that UWI has reason to boast, which it considers “diverse and all-encompassing. The university is partnering with several institutions to better develop research in sports. There is now focus in different areas of sports,” Myers stated.

The areas of research are examining sports medicine and medical capabilities, geography ancestry and genetics of athletes, physiotherapy, Tropical Medicine Research Institute (TMRI) with the Department of Medicine to measure human nutrition, and the UWI Sports Medicine Clinic, noted the sports director.

“Our goal is to create world-class development of sport, this includes improved facilities, top-quality competitive sport, and also recreational sport… Our aim is to provide the basic holistic development of the student: academic, sport, nutritional, medical, and psychological,” explained Myers.