WWS scout for talent

the first of its kind” excursion around the country, looking for Zimbabwe’s most talented athletes in the sporting disciplines of soccer, tennis, athletics and basketball.
They will be conducting seven camps in the country with the objective of linking chosen talent to the following opportunities:
l Talented athletes will be put in a structured training environment
l Athletes will be linked to life changing opportunities in their sport and academics
l Sports talent will be linked with scholarships if they deserve them
l Sports talent will be linked with international platforms to nurture and develop their talent
The chosen athletes will be invited to a Talent Showcase camp in front of international coaches in December.
Coaches from the United States and other nations will be on site for the Africa 1 000 event. Scouting will commence on November 1 in all the four corners of the country and WWS Academy scouts will visit, among other places in Zimbabwe, Masvingo, Mutare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Harare’s high-density suburbs of Mbare and Mufa-kose. Registration deadline is November 5. Munya Maraire, the president of WWS Academy, yesterday said all interested athletes would need to call one of the academy’s agents to register for the camp and information in their area.
“The best talent in the world is in the high-density areas. There is a need to be deliberate about finding it and going to where it is. We have worked in the past with the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, finding athletes and we found Tinashe Mutanga who was a finalist in the 100m race at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games and at the Africa Youth and World Junior Championships on many occasions.
“We also discovered (long jumper) Ngoni Makusha who has gone to the World Championships and shattered many incredible records in athletics, running 9.89 seconds in the men’s 100m and jumping 8.40m to date spiced up by one World Championships bronze medal,” Maraire said.
The WWS Academy boss said scouting for the best talent is not difficult.
“All you have to do is ask one person in their class who the best athlete is and you will have a million names! Knowing if the scouted talent is good enough is the hard part and that is where the WWS Academy come in to assess them and this is what we are going to do all over Zimbabwe in the next 45 days.”
Among the notable scouted athletes by WWS Academy are female basketball player Alexandra Maseko, Maku-sha, tennis player Tanya Gombera, promising young footballer Simon Solobala and another soccer player Victor Nkhoma.
Maseko is now playing NCAA Division 1 basketball for Seton Hall University in the United States while Makusha has since turned professional after spending four years on an athletics scholarship at Florida State University, also in the United States. Gombera is playing tennis at Malone College in the United States while young Solobala attended an AC Milan Junior Camp in 2011. Nkhoma is making a name for himself as a soccer player at the University of Georgia in the United States where he is also an academic achiever in business studies. Rachel Goromonzi, who is currently making headlines in the United States where she is playing for Limestone College’s women’s field hockey team in the NCAA Division II, is also a product of WWS Academy.
Goromonzi (19) arrived at Limestone in August last year on a four-year field hockey scholarship and she became an instant hit at the college where she has already won a number of accolades through her exploits on the field.