By Patricia Turyahebwa
Victoria University was a surprise package at the December 2022 edition of the Eastern Africa University Games that were held at Ndejje main campus in Luweero.
Despite competing in the games for the very first time, Victoria managed to finish in 12th position overall out of the 25 universities which finished in the medal bracket.
According to Victoria’s sports tutor Patrick Sebuliba, they had 49 athletes who competed in netball, basketball (men and women), handball, badminton and chess.
Despite being débutantes they picked a medal in each and every discipline they competed in.
Sebuliba’s ambition is to turn Victoria into a university sports empire like he did with Nkumba where he spent several years.
For starters, coaches Edwin Manzi (basketball), Rashid Mubiru (netball) and Ismail Bazanye (handball) all followed Sebuliba from Nkumba to Victoria.
“It’s not that I want to create the culture, I have already taken it there. I’m using my experience of two decades in sports management to recruit good quality of players, coaches and then the support of the institution makes us be up there,” he said.
In netball, Victoria won silver after losing 51-68 to defending champions Kampala University despite having an experienced netball coach in Mubiru who is a former She Cranes tactician.
“I have been with him since 2004 in Nkumba and he followed me at Victoria. I don’t think there will be any other university that will win the number of netball trophies in the near future like me,” Sebuliba bragged.
They also took gold in the women’s basketball category after beating Uganda Christian University (UCU) 58-42 while the men lost to Kenyatta University in the quarter-finals.
In chess, Victoria had Gloria Nansubuga a Woman Fide Master who was fresh from the World University Mind Games championships in Belgium as well as India for the World championship and Sebuliba believes he has the best chess players in all universities.
“I think I have the best players in the country if we had played the 8th round against Makerere we were going to walk away with gold,” he noted
Meanwhile in handball, Victoria got bronze after collecting four points in the round robin format after Ndejje and Kampala University who got eight and six points respectively to carry home gold and silver medals. In badminton, Victoria got silver.
Sebuliba believes that Victoria is on the right course to become a powerhouse.
“Expect more fireworks, we are going to beef up all the teams with better players in different disciplines so that they are strong. We have Inter-University games and I don’t want to relax just because we did well in Ndejje,” he said.
Leave feedback about this