Historic opening of UWI sports facility at St Augustine today

History will be created today when Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus, delivers the feature address at the formal opening of the University of the West Indies Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC) and the 2003 UWI Games at 5 pm.

The St Augustine Campus is the first of the three campuses to have a Sport and Physical Education Centre, which will cater for the overall development of students pursuing programmes at the region’s highest educational institution. The newly-built modern indoor facility will cater for basketball, volleyball, netball, badminton, indoor hockey, indoor football, table tennis and aerobics. The project was spearheaded by Dr Iva Gloudon, Director of Sports and Physical Education at UWI and will add another dimension to the high level programmes offered by the region’s established university campuses.

Roger Boynes, Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, is expected to represent the Government of Trinidad and Tobago at this historic function. He will also deliver an address at the opening ceremony, which includes the parade of campus teams (St Augustine, Cave Hill and Mona), cheerleading performances and an aerobics burnout. Professor Gurumohan Kochar, Deputy Principal of UWI, St Augustine Campus, will also be part of the proceedings. According to Dr Gloudon, SPEC must be seen as an institution which “will promote tertiary level programmes that deal with the academic and scientific aspects of sports and physical education.” “Most of the programmes which will be offered will cater for the overall development of those persons who are associated with sports and physical education,” she said.

Dr Gloudon revealed that during her eleven-year tenure at UWI, she worked on upgrading the recreational facilities and that SPEC was conceptualised six years ago. Construction of the massive $30 million indoor facility started three years later with money from UWI and subsequently from corporate sponsors. It will serve as the major centre for this year’s UWI Games (Inter-Campus). The volleyball, basketball and netball segments of the annual Inter-Campus competition will be held at the centre, which is equipped with modern electronic scoreboards.

Cricket and football matches will be contested on campus grounds, while the athletics competition will be staged at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, next Saturday from 8 am. Cricket will be the first competition sport. And the St Augustine Campus will take on Mona tomorrow at the Sir Frank Worrell field from 9 am. Later, the two teams will clash in a football match at the UWI Administrative Field from 3.30 pm. The action switches to the SPEC Indoor Facility in the evening with a volleyball encounter between Cave Hill and Mona at 6 pm, while St Augustine will do battle with Cave Hill in the first basketball showdown from 8 pm.