Cebu City Sports Commission to include beach volleyball, tennis in grassroots program for 2012

AFTER a busy year that saw the group offering a grassroots program to almost 15,000 kids, the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) will take a brief rest before continuing the program next year after the Sinulog celebrations.

CCSC chairman Ed Hayco said this year, they offered year round free lessons on basketball, boxing, taekwondo, table tennis, arnis, dancesport, volleyball, badminton, chess, softball and baseball but had to stop because of the Batang Pinoy, Milo National Olympics and the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association.

“We actually move from barangay to barangay every two weeks. We’ve been to Adlaon, Bitlang, Sudlon, Bonbon, Guadalupe. We will start again after the Sinulog celebration,” Hayco told Sun.Star Cebu.

The 2012 edition will have the 11 sports they started this year plus beach volleyball and tennis.

“For now, we plan to teach the kids the basic skills of beach volleyball and once the beach volleyball courts are complete in Fort San Pedro, that’s the time that they will have the actual games,” Hayco said.

Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) member Eric Licain, a beach volleyball coach, will take care of the program. PSC chairman Ritchie Garcia himself assigned Licain to Cebu because he has seen the potential of Cebu’s program.

As for tennis, since the CCSC doesn’t own a tennis court, Hayco said they plan to focus on the basic skills through “walling.”

“We can‘t have everything at the same time. Step by step lang and we will reach that goal,” Hayco said.

Hayco added that they are still assessing how to come up with an Olympic-type multi-event meet to serve as the culmination for the grassroots program and are looking at clustering the barangays to form them into units.

“The direction is there but we need to assess how we can do it, how big it would be and how many would be participating,” said Hayco, who added he wants to hold the culmination with the annual Cebu Sportsfest next summer.