Lagos State To Engage 82 Coaches

Lagos State is set to engage the services of eighty two coaches that will work with the thirty seven sports associations in the state.

Commissioner for Youth, Sports and Social Development, Wahid Oshodi, the engagement of the coaches is part of the efforts to continue the success recorded at the last National Sports Festival tagged Eko 2012, with the aim to do well at the 2014 edition.
 
“We believe these coaches will assist us to continue to train our athletes especially with our performance at Eko 2012. We believe that grooming these athletes before any major competitions will put them in good shape. Our focus is development and we hope that these coaches will also help us to unearth new athletes from our schools”, he said.

The list of coaches who will be on contract consist of three renowned coaches, Joe Mensah for boxing, Samson Egbeyemi for badminton and Suraju Onanuga for volleyball.

Others expected to work with the associations include four for athletics, two for chess, two for gymnastic, two for cycling, one for dart, two for rowing and yachting, three for scrabble, two for shooting, three for swimming, two for weightlifting, two for squash, one for badminton, five for table tennis and two for tennis.

For combat sports, boxing has three, judo has two, kickboxing has two, kungfu has two, wrestling, has two, karate has two while taekwondo also has two.

In team sports, six tacticians will handle football, three for baseball and softball, cricket has three, handball has three, hockey has three, while volleyball has three as well.

Others are deaf athletics has one, while Paralympics (athletics) has four, Para soccer has one, powerlifting has one, traditional sports has nine coaches for abula, Ayo, dambe, kokowa and langa.

However, there are still opportunities for more coaches to handle abula, volleyball, table tennis and karate.

The recruited coaches are expected to assist the associations to develop grassroots sports especially in schools.