Progress with team athletics in schools

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32972, 19 July 1972, Page 12

Progress with team athletics in schools

The response from secondary schools towards his scheme for regular inter-school athletics competition had been very favourable, the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association’s coordination officer (Mr B. H. Wilson, of Napier) said during his visit to Christchurch last week. Since September Mr Wilson has been in contact with 129 secondary schools throughout the country promoting team athletics. “The reaction from principals has been very sympathetic. They have given the impression that they are genuinely interested,” Mr Wilson said. He envisages three zones being held in Christchurch, probably starting in October or November. Inter-school competition was already operating in Invercargill, Dunedin, Wei-

lington, Palmerston North and Wanganui. “Team athletics has been devised to attract and educate more people into the sport of athletics by taking the emphasis off individual achievement and encouraging greater participation and interest m a team sense,” Mr Wilson, a Rothmans athletic coach, explained. “Most people enjoy being a winner and as athletics is basically an individual sport there can normally be only one. In a team situation, many can share in the occasion,” he said. In many schools athletics is a once-a-year occasion and Mr Wilson hopes to encourage weekly team contests for schools. His system works on a points basis which does not require competitors’ names, times or distances.