Brad Bing doesn’t shout about all the stars he’s “discovered”, but there are more than a few champions whose interest in sport was first piqued at a Sporting Chance clinic.
The Sporting Chance Foundation, Bing’s creation, operates at the grassroots of sport. It began with an idea more than 30 years ago, when he put his passion into practice and gave many children a healthy outlet for their holiday energy in cricket clinics. Bing, a scion of a famous Western Province cricket family and once no average player himself, began with the sport he loved, but it soon expanded to other codes.
The foundation has helped tens of thousands of children to hone basic sporting skills, and many have thrived. But now Bing is concerned that sports development is at a crossroads. He worries that potential Siya Kolisis, Temba Bavumas and Quinton de Kocks will fall through the cracks unless the government and business help.
“I started Sporting Chance to make a difference, and out of frustration,” Bing tells the FM. “I’d played cricket in South Africa and the UK, and I’d had the chance to travel to the US to study how they market and promote sport. Apartheid was coming to an end. I understood that the number of people playing sport was about to quadruple.
“I went to the powers that be and we discussed the structures that were needed to accommodate mass participation. Unfortunately, my pleas fell on deaf ears. I had to take matters into my own hands, and in 1990 Sporting Chance was born.”
On the surface South African sport seems in rude health, judging from world cups, Olympics and world championships. However, Bing says a lack of investment at grassroots will have a negative effect on the country’s sport — and on society — in the future.
We ... found that a lot of children who don’t have that sporting opportunity, and who long for that sense of belonging, end up joining a gang
“It’s a myth that companies want to plough money into sport development,” he says. “We’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and we’ve provided all the structures and shown what a difference it can make on various levels. You’d think that people would be throwing money at this, but that’s not the case.
“South African sport needs to take a hard look at itself. It’s getting harder to gain access to underresourced communities, because of crime in those areas. If it’s not safe, I’m hesitant to send my teams, and the children suffer. They’re missing out on the chance to develop skills that will allow them to grow and possibly to forge a career.
“We’ve done our research on this and found that a lot of children who don’t have that sporting opportunity, and who long for that sense of belonging, end up joining a gang. It’s heartbreaking.”
When Bing started Sporting Chance, about 100 children, not all of them boys, turned up at the various clinics. That number swelled to 500, and then to 1,000. Today there are 45,000 involved across the various programmes. Courses are held in affluent as well as developing areas, and cater for boys and girls regardless of their abilities.
However, the growth of the programme and of South African sport in general is far from guaranteed. “The first thing we need is a strategy regarding where we are going, and that involves being honest about where we are,” says Bing. “The system needs an overhaul.”
In the early 2000s, Sporting Chance did research with the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, which showed that three components were needed to succeed in sport: equipment, facilities and quality coaching. “A cricket bat can cost over R5,000. If you can’t afford the equipment, and you have no access to facilities or some form of structured coaching, what chance do you have of developing?”
The research also showed that over the past few years interest in sport at government schools has begun to decline. “When we started in 1990, cricket was a big part of our organisation. Now it’s less than 10%. The cost of equipment is prohibitive, and a lot of children are deciding that such big investment of their time may not be worth the reward.”
Bing also worries about the decline of club sport in poor communities and the negative impact this will have on development. He says clubs in poor areas don’t have a business model or financial backers, so they flounder.
“We’ve got to get national government buy-in to put sport on the forefront of the agenda and to spend money in the right places,” says Bing. “There should be legislation that if you invest in the top of sport, you should also invest in the bottom.”
Bing might have noticed how many political hangers-on there have been since the Springboks won the World Cup. Perhaps they could be persuaded to help.
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