OPINION: Coaches must use science, not muti

Let me divert a bit from the usual topics of social ills and crime and look at our sports people and former athletes as possible leaders in their respective disciplines.

As somebody who is actively involved in sport, I have seen a new trend, that of muti usage, especially by former athletes who are now coaches.

But before talking about muti, its advantages and disadvantages, allow me to congratulate and commend the same athletes for their involvement in their respective sporting codes.

Credit should also go to the sports organisations for giving opportunities to the local men and women.

For years we have been crying loud for them to be given such lucrative opportunities.

Cricket and rugby and other sports besides soccer have always be a good example for using locals lads. The less said about soccer, the better.

Anything foreign in soccer has been good.

From as far back as I can remember, professional soccer teams were coached, mentored and managed by foreigners. They had some reasons for doing that and at some point I supported their stance.

I felt at the time that local former players were lazy to develop and empower themselves. They thought they were simply entitled to coach because of their former accomplishments. They relied on their playing experience and were not willing to learn from others. These chaps lived in the past and forget that everything was evolving. Even the muti they used is no longer working because it is not used to climate change. The trend of bogus witch doctors was also growing on the other side. And there are bogus prophets on the other side. Everything has become fake.

Not TB Joshua’s water or that of Bushiri or Universal Church of Baba’s Kitchen church oil could work these days. You can sprinkle it all around the field, top of the change rooms and surroundings. It won’t work.

Coaches’ denial about change and intellectual growth meant that team owners would rather use foreigners.

The change that we are seeing, we need to grab it with both hands. After we’ve spent billions on people who only came here to fatten their pockets, we are on a new path.

Team owners now believe in ourselves. Sports federations have confidence in us. Who would have thought that Desiree Ellis would be given such an opportunity to coach a national women’s team? Who would ever have thought a team such as big as Kaizer Chiefs would ever be coached by a local lad? This should be encouraging to our former players. I am not talking only about soccer but all sporting codes.

We should claim cricket back. When they appointed the current coach Ottis Gibson, personally I was far from being happy.

But having said all that I said above, I want to urge those who lead or coach teams to empower themselves in the current sport environment.

I wish to see them attend as many coaching seminars and clinics as they possibly can. I am not advocating for any particular organisation, institution or individual that conducts courses but it would be great to go out and learn. Science has taken over from muti now. We cannot be stuck in muti that is not working. Stupidity is when a coach infuses, confuses and cripples his players’ minds by muti instead of making them believe in their God-given talents.

I am not saying muti does not work, all I am saying is you might be using a pure stick that is not muti. You might be using a bogus witch doctor that has never gone for proper training in that field.

Your church leader, prophet might be just a tsotsi from next door who does not even know who God is.

Ask yourself proper questions like how many witch-doctors and prophets claim to cure HIV, grow your penis, bring back the dead and many other lies. Wake up and be smart. I’ve seen teams lose games although they had bottles and sticks between the poles.

No amount of muti, oil, holy water can win you games if your players are not mentally fit, don’t believe in you and use lousy tactics.

For what I know about those who believe in muti and witch-craft, when things are not going well, they normally accuse those around them. The end results would be rifts and firing of innocent people. Fire them and we will wait for the results after that.

Coaches, black ones, need to go to another level. The world belongs to the energetic not stupid people who cannot encourage young people to be better citizens after the game.