Team Saints Travels to Durban

The acronym “TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More” held true as Team Saints participated in Cricket, Tennis, Golf and Water Polo fixtures (U/10 to Open age groups) against Durban High Preparatory School (DPHS) from 4 – 7 February.

As has become expected of our Saints Boys, more than just quality sporting skills and positive results were achieved, but in addition, the quality of sportsmanship, manners and a passion for boys’ prep was displayed. The interaction of our boys amongst one another, their teams and that of the boys from DPHS was both encouraging and a joy to behold. Our Team enjoyed the beach and UShaka, while the friendships made from playing sport was the true highlight.

Sport was the catalyst of seeing our values, character and school philosophy in action. Each boy proved to be a sound ambassador for our school.

To pay tribute to the gift that sport is for each boy and our prep, some creative licence has been taken from Ode to Sport an article which appeared in the sports literature competition in the V Olympiad - Stockholm 1912.

Ode to Sport

Sport, you are Beauty! You are the architect of that structure which is the human body and which can become inspiring through healthy exertion. There can be no beauty without balance and proportion, and you are the unmatched master of both, for you create harmony, you give movements rhythm, you make strength graceful and you endow suppleness with power.

Sport, you are Justice! The perfect equity for which men strive. No one can jump a centimetre higher than the height he can jump, nor run a minute longer than the length he can run. The limits of his success are determined solely by his own physical and moral strength.

Sport, you are Audacity! The meaning of all muscular effort can be summed up in the word ‘dare’. What good are muscles, what is the point of feeling strong and agile, and why work to improve one’s agility and strength, unless it is in order to dare.

Sport, you are Honour! Winning has no value unless it has been achieved in absolute fairness and with perfect impartiality.

Sport, you are Progress! To serve you, a boy must improve himself both physically and spiritually. You force him to abide by a greater discipline; you demand that he avoid all excess. You teach him wise rules which allow him to exert himself with the maximum of intensity without compromising his good health.

Sport, you are Harmony! You promote happy relations, bringing our school together to a strength which is controlled, organized and self-disciplined. From you, our boys learn self-respect, respect for others and humility. Sport you grow our values. Sport you afford us a generous and friendly rivalry within ourselves and against our peers.

Most importantly, Sport, you are Joy! At your command, flesh dances and eyes smile; blood races abundantly through the arteries. Thoughts stretch out on a brighter, clearer horizon. To the sorrowful you can even bring a reprieve from their distress, whilst the happy you enable fully to savour their joie de vivre.

Staff travelling with our boys were tremendously proud of the boys. Each staff member concurred that they were rewarded with time with our boys that reminded us of the gift of our vocation, the gift that is sport, each boy and the gift that is One and All…