Steven Ball says he is the kind of person that jumps at opportunities when they are presented – and his position at TuksSport at the University of Pretoria (UP) was the kind he leapt at, even though it was something he never imagined would happen. “I did not anticipate that I would be the Director of TuksSport one day,” he says. “Yet here we are today – and I am excited about it!”

Before his appointment in January this year, Ball had been a deputy director at TuksSport for eight years. If you include his years of study at UP, you’d get over 20 years of association with the institution. In 1999, Ball graduated from UP with a BA in Human Movement Science; he was only 20 at the time. He went on to do his honours in the subject, specialising in Biokinetics. Ball also completed the Management Advancement Programme (MAP) at the University of Witwatersrand’s Wits Business School, before obtaining an MPhil in Business Management Responsible Leadership at UP.

When he took up the position of Director of TuksSport, he faced the challenge of managing a sports platform with severe restrictions in place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The illness disrupted the psychological safety of many athletes as they wanted to continue to train and compete against one another,” he says. “We had not had student sports competitions since March 2020. Even in the sporting arena, we too relied on Zoom meetings, Google Meet and other communicating tools to keep in touch.”

Yet even before the pandemic struck, sport was facing a questionable future. “What COVID-19 did was shine a spotlight on challenges faced within the sporting sector, such as sustainability, leadership and governance aspects and true high performance systems.” Ball says. Under his leadership, the TuksSport Director hopes to revaluate and realign how business is done and to look at how we can all actively contribute to the core business of the University – which is education first – and participate in meaningful conversations about how to do things that are sustainable, relevant, impactful and collaborative in nauture.

As for the next big thing in sport – the 2021 Olympics – a few UP students and alumni will be participating in this year’s Games. Though, Ball says, the event will look very different this year, and the process might be different in terms of living arrangements for Olympians and attendees. The vaccination process is also one that is of paramount importance. “I am sure The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will engage with the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), who will further engage with the Department of Health to deal with potentialvaccination administration of those heading to the Olympics,” Ball explains. 

For Ball, Tuks athletes who “wear the stripe” (a UP blazer) have a greater responsibility to the UP community. “Wearing the ‘stripe comes with responsibility. Every Tuks athlete has to learn to be competitive and conditioned. We talk about ‘earning your stripes’ and respecting the ‘badge’. It comes with long, hard hours when no one is watching. On leaving the University, the goal should always be to have left the ‘stripe’ at a better place, on a higher level for the next generation.”