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15 September 2021 | Story Jóhann Thormählen | Photo Charl Devenish
The University of the Free State (UFS) netball team was honoured by UFS management at a special celebration. The side won a fourth Varsity Netball title and the UFS has now been champion in 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2021.

Set goals for yourself, commit to it, and give everything to achieve them.

According to Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), this is what the UFS netball team did and why it is an example for the Kovsie community.

He celebrated the team’s achievement of winning Varsity Netball for a record fourth time and extending the run of the UFS as the most successful team in the tournament.

The Kovsies convincingly beat Maties 55-39 in the final to be crowned champions. It was the biggest victory margin in a final, and they did it after losing to Maties (46-54) in the first round.

Prof Petersen and his management group honoured Burta de Kock, the UFS Head Coach, and her team during a special celebration on 13 September 2021.

Working as an outfit

He said the side’s determination is a lesson to others.

“Once you have decided that these are my objectives and you commit yourself to achieving them, that is all you focus on.”

“It will always be possible if you put everything in and you showed it. Thank you for doing this.”

He praised the team for building the UFS brand. 

“You really work as an outfit. What I saw of the players was a right attitude when they play the game.”

Everything made easy

Sikholiwe (Sne) Mdletshe, the UFS captain, thanked her team’s management, the UFS, and its lecturers.

“We really want to thank the university for putting so much into us. It gives us a lot of resources.

“Some tests had to be written while we were in the bubble and our lecturers made that easy for us.”

She said the players never take the effort for granted. “The UFS makes everything easy to go out there and play netball – the sport we have been playing since we were little kids.”

DB Prinsloo, Director of KovsieSport, is immensely proud of the team.

“We even lost one of our best players in the first match, Chanel Vrey, due to injury. We have to take off our hats to the Kovsie netball team.”


News Archive

National Literacy Month celebrated
2013-09-16

 

Revelling in the lighter side of life on Robben Island, were from left: Paddy Harper, Gugu Kunene, Peter-Paul Ngwenya, Betsy Eister, Director of the UFS Library and Information Services, and Fred Khumalo.
Photo: Jerry Mokoroane
16 September 2013

In recognition of National Literacy Month, the UFS Library and Information Services hosted journalists Fred Khumalo, Paddy Harper and Gugu Kunene, who launched their book,‘The lighter side of Life on Robben Island’, to Bloemfontein book lovers.

Khumalo, a Sunday Times review columnist, Harper, a journalist for City Press, and Kunene, a former SABC journalist, enthralled the audience with snippets from their book. “We have read so many other books on Robben Island,” Khumalo said, “focusing on the famous people like (Nelson) Mandela and (Ahmed) Kathrada. The idea of this book is to reflect on lesser-known individuals; explore and illuminate other aspects of their lives."

To give the audience just such an intimate glimpse into those experiences, Peter-Paul Ngwenya – a former inmate on Robben Island –shared the stage in the Scaena Theatre. When Ngwenya, now chairperson of Makana Investment Corporation, regaled attendees with anecdotes from fellow detainees and everyday prison life, he brought the entire house down in stitches of laughter.

Contrasting the light banter of everyday life with the hardships prisoners faced, Khumalo said the book celebrates "the humanity of individuals – those sides of the story that make them human beings with fully fledged lives."

 

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