Wits Sport Director, Mandla Gagayi looking to give Witsies a new lease on life through sport
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Wits has swiftly become a force to be reckoned within sport around the country, which has come as result of the hard work and foundations laid behind the scenes
The university was recently proud to announce and welcome a shift in leadership in the sports department, with Mr Mandla Gagayi taking the reins as the new Wits Sport director.
Mr Gagayi was born in a small town of Molteno, next to Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, in 1976, where he completed his secondary education before moving to his family home in Dobsonville, Soweto in 1996.
Mandla comes with vast leadership experience in the university sporting space, having previously served as the head of sport at Rhodes University in Grahamstown between 2010 and 2015, before taking up a role of Director of Sport at the University of the Western Cape from 2015 to June 2024.
The Wits director's duties will entail strategically leading the repositioning of Wits Sport in the context of high-performance student sport and taking the importance of ‘sports for all’ into account, so as to promote student health and wellness across the campuses. In doing so, he will have to ensure adequate resources to support the strategy.
It's an exciting time for Wits Sport to welcome such an experienced personnel in the sporting space, in which Mr Gagayi expressed a feeling of confidence in joining the Witsie family.
“I am content and confident in that I have been working in the university sport environment for the past 22 years, as such, I have always known Wits Sport and its vision for sport.”
Mr Mandla Gagayi further expressed his vision for Wits Sport, saying his vision is to see Wits as the leader in sports performance and research. He then further added on how the ball has started rolling in making the vision a reality.
“I first had to meet with all the role players at Wits to understand how their services/offerings are aligned with Wits Sport. The purpose of these arrangements was also to ensure that Wits Sport is aligned with the University’s Vision 2033 and not operate in a silo.”
“The change will however start with ensuring that all the current vacancies are filled so that we can build a professional and high-performance work ethic that has every team member’s buy-in and accountability. The same culture will be cascaded down to coaches, student athletes, and Wits Sport affiliates will have to understand their ‘why’ they are at Wits and take accountability for it. This will be a culture and work ethic that will ensure that we realize our Vision for 2033.”
With the exciting time ahead under the leadership of Mandla Gagayi, there is plenty the student athletes and supporters can look forward to the director shared.
“Student athletes must look forward to fully taking ownership of their performance. This means co-planning and setting of performance standards, so that no results are accidental. This will take time because it requires culture change or change of habits. As such, the supporters will need to be patient and trust the process as well as provide the much-needed constructive criticism. They must do that with the understanding that student athletes are first students before they are athletes. Most importantly, both student athletes and supporters must always understand that Wits teams do not perform to prove anyone wrong, but they must perform to show gratitude and appreciation to those who support them.”
Mr Mandla Gagayi concluded by sharing what impact he feels sport has on student athletes.
“Sport teaches student athletes the human skills that they would otherwise never learn in class (e.g building friendships, dealing with losses, celebrating successes, playing within the rules, etc.). Sport allows student athletes to get to know their true selves and learn to cope with different pressures. Student athletes further get to travel abroad or by air through sport, giving a true meaning to ‘sport changes lives.”