Leighton Levy, STAR Gleaner

Rugby and women's football will be contested for the first time this year at the UWI/UTech Sports Championships set for September 15, at the UWI Bowl in Mona. These changes were among others announced at a press conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, yesterday.

Rashid Hall of the UWI Sports Department and one of the persons instrumental in getting these championships up and running three years ago, explained that rugby and women's football were added primarily because the student body demanded them. Adding them, he said, also give these still emerging sports opportunities to get into the media spotlight. Athletes from the University of the West Indies (UWI) and University of Technology (UTech) will now compete against each other in these two sports as well as in football, T20 cricket, basketball, volleyball and netball. UTech are the defending T20 cricket champions but the UWI last year dominated winning netball, volleyball, basketball and football to be overall champions.

press conference

Hall explained to the more than 50 people gathered for yesterday's press conference that the championships were created three years ago to help students develop a school identity. Many of Jamaica's sports stars are from the high-school level and these championships along with other initiatives being undertaken by local universities have the specific purpose of helping to shift some of that focus to the collegiate level. Much more can be done however.

Describing the thrust for greater marketing initiatives to help generate interest in collegiate sport as being in the embryonic stage, Hall acknowledged that as colleges try to gain greater traction within the sporting fraternity, greater efforts must be made to engage the images of sports stars that are in college in Jamaica. Olympic and former World champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is a student of UTech, while Olympic sprint hurdles bronze medallist Hansle Parchment is a student of the UWI.

The championships, which will help to kick off the academic year with a bang, were also designed to help the students develop a sense of pride as well as greater integration between the two universities.

This year's event will kick off with a carnival road march that will begin at UTech in Papine and end at the Mona Bowl via the Irvine Hall gate at the University of the West Indies. In addition to the competitions, there will also be a lunch time concert that will feature the non-athletic talents of students from each university as well as interaction with the event sponsors that include Lucozade, Ensure, Soccer Express, Red Bones, Wray and Nephew, Emkay Sports, Lariba Marketing, KLAS, and CVM TV.