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28 October 2023 | Story Jóhann Thormählen

The University of the Free State (UFS) is tremendously proud of the Springboks for claiming a record fourth title and for once again having former Kovsies part of a World Cup champion side.

Jacques Nienaber – the Boks’ head coach and UFS alumnus – and his rugby team united the country when South Africa became the first team in history to win the William Webb Ellis trophy a fourth time. They are also the first South African side to win consecutive World Cup tournaments.

The UFS community celebrates this remarkable achievement with the rest of South Africa and cannot wait to welcome back the latest world champions after defeating New Zealand 12-11 in the final in Paris on Saturday (28 October 2023).

It is truly incredible! The victory means so much to our country. And for our university it also means a lot, especially with all the former Kovsies involved in the planning and execution of the whole World Cup campaign. Congratulations to the Springboks! It is awesome - Jaco Swanepoel (Head of Rugby at KovsieSport)

UFS alumni at helm

The triumph in France is also the second time in four years that a Kovsie has steered the Boks to World Cup victory. In 2019 in Japan, Rassie Erasmus was the head coach.

Erasmus still counts among a handful of former Shimlas and Kovsies in the class of 2023.

The former Springbok player, together with Nienaber, Daan Human (scrum coach), and Bongani Tim Qumbu (strength and conditioning coach) are all in the Bok management, while the former Shimla Ox Nche helped the team beat the All Blacks on the field.

The final was also the last game as head coach for Nienaber, who studied physiotherapy at the UFS and later became a coach. He will be joining the Irish club Leinster as an assistant coach.

Another UFS alumnus, Jaco Peyper, represented South Africa as a World Cup referee in 2023. He refereed his second World Cup opening match and was in charge of the quarter-final between Wales and Argentina, where he was unfortunately injured.

Jaco Swanepoel, Head of Rugby at KovsieSport, congratulated the Springboks. He said it takes determination, planning, and hard work – from the players, coaches, and all involved.

“It is truly incredible! The victory means so much to our country,” he said.

“And for our university it also means a lot, especially with all the former Kovsies involved in the planning and execution of the whole World Cup campaign.”

“Congratulations to the Springboks! It is awesome!”

Kovsies part of all four World Cup victories

The UFS not only had former Kovsies in the 2023 Bok side, but also in all three previous South African World Cup winning teams (1995, 2007, and 2019) – either as players or team management.

“The UFS Rugby Club is very proud of the Springboks, and of course the former Kovsies involved, for winning the World Cup again,” said Marius van Rensburg, UFS Rugby Club Chairman.

He said a Bok jersey from the 2007 World Cup winning team, signed by all the UFS alumni involved, is part of the memorabilia in the Shimla Room at Shimla Park.

“It would be great if we could get another Springbok jersey – signed by all the Kovsies who won the 2023 World Cup –to add to our collection.

News Archive

The universal power of music and song to convey the unspeakable
2015-05-07

Philip Miller
Photo: Johan Roux

Spotlight photo: John Hodgkiss

Philip Miller, award-winning composer and sound artist, recently delivered the second instalment of the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past on the Bloemfontein Campus. This lecture series forms part of a five-year research project led by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. The series focuses on how the creative arts represent trauma and memory, and how these representations may facilitate the healing of historical wounds.

Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory
In Miller’s lecture, ‘Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory’, he discussed the creative process – and the far-researching effects – of his composition: ‘REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony’. The production consists of 4 soloists, an 80- to 100-member choir, a string octet, combined with gripping projected images and audio of victims testifying during the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) hearings.

While listening to those raw recordings, Miller would rewind continually and listen again. In between the sounds of the tape stretching and spooling, sighs, gulps for air, and moments when the speakers lost their speech, a hidden sound world revealed itself. And within these silences lay an entrenched trauma far more profound than the actual words spoken.

Communal remembering
When Miller asked Nomonde Calata how she felt about his using the recording of her heart-rending cry during her TRC testimony, her reply was poignant. For Calata, her cries – taken over by the voice of Sibongile Khumalo during the cantata – were a living memorial to her loving husband. “And it almost felt like a soothing balm to her traumatic loss,” Miller said.

“I believe that a collective body of people singing is a unique symbolic act of communal remembering. But more than that, it is a deep form of identification of our humanity, and allows for some form of catharsis for those testifiers who have attended the live performances. Just as a parent sings a lullaby to calm a crying child, the choir singing reaches those of us who continue to mourn.

“Music and song – and the arts in general – can convey the powerful stories of our nation without fearing to engage with the subject matter,” Miller said. “This I believe is the universal power of music and song: to convey a spiritual dimension to what perhaps is sometimes too graphic and painful to comprehend fully.”

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