The Editor, Sir:

This letter has been addressed to the Right Honourable Edward Seaga, distinguished fellow at the UWI, Mona:

Dear Sir:

I wish to comment on your article in The Sunday Gleaner of September 21 titled 'The dimensions of sports' and note that I am a newcomer to the business of sports administration. In my previous life, I made a very good living from the management of paper. When I joined Tennis Jamaica, I was dismayed by the amount of paperwork involved in the administration of a national sporting organisation. I have a very healthy respect for the volunteers who have run these organisations after work and on weekends with little governmental support and no real administrative infrastructure.

As a result, most of our national sporting organisations are at the mercy of the current president, who may or may not be willing or able to invest the resources that operating an effective organisation requires. And even if you give it all that you have, do not expect that you will be overwhelmed by thanks and praise from the people who benefit from your efforts. Appreciation is not a burden that any national association leader will have to carry.

What I also find interesting and very sad is that our sports policy (do we have one?) seems to marginalise half our population - us women. Of what I have come to refer to as 'The Big 3' sporting activities - cricket, football and track - we women only participate in the latter.

Surely, somebody somewhere must realise that this is not fair. And somebody must care!!

Support the 'big 3'

Please appreciate that I am not advocating removing any support from the Big 3. I am not minded to miss a Test match (our poor performance notwith-standing) and I love my football and my track just like the next person, but our female student athletes do not deserve to be treated like this.

In the US, they try to 'level the playing field' by awarding a larger number of tennis scholarships to girls (eight) than boys (4.5) in most universities because all the (American) football scholarships are awarded to boys. While we do not have a significant sporting scholarship portfolio, do you think that perhaps government-funded standardised administrative support to all the other forgotten sporting associations may be a step in the right direction?

All of us have to keep accounts and provide financial reports to a multitude of government agencies and international governing bodies, not to mention the few sponsors that we have. All of us have to administer a membership register, track payment of dues and issue membership cards. We also grapple with event planning and marketing. So why not help all of us with technology and expertise?

This would also protect the actual associations, to some extent at least, from the perils of changes in leadership/management of the association and ensure that all of us - I think over 20 sporting associations exist now - achieve and maintain a certain level of professionalism without 'breaking the bank'.

Would this be too much to ask? And if it is not them, whom should I ask? Who will listen? Who will act?

Yours sincerely,

CHRISTINE GORE (Mrs)

Tennis Jamaica

Honorary Secretary