GUSA GAMES 2022: UEW Female athlete breaks 16 Years 400 Meters Record

From 1964, the three existing public universities in Ghana began having biennial games without any central organising body.

The idea of formation of the Ghana University Sports Association (GUSA) occurred in 1965 when the three universities of Ghana attended the maiden West Africa University Games (WAUG) held in March 1965 at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

The Ghanaian universities realised that there was the existence of a Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA) which organised competitions for Nigerian universities.

Upon their return, ET Kodzi, then coach of the University of Cape Coast, was tasked to draft a constitution for GUSA, which was adopted in 1969. The first leaders were:

President: Sam Blankson (University of Cape Coast)

Secretary: ET Kodzi (University of Cape Coast)

Several others played leadership roles in the growth of GUSA including JE Mills of the University of Ghana (former President of Ghana) who was president for 15 years.

With the initial membership of three public universities, GUSA now has seven members. The other members are the University of Education, Winneba (first as Specialist Training College), the University of Development Studies, the University of Mines and Technology, and the University of Professional Studies, Accra.

In 2013, the constitution of GUSA was reviewed and private universities are now allowed to join the association. It is hoped that membership will increase with this new development.

GUSA’s activities have mainly been organising biennial games (beginning from 1964) and engaging in other competitions at national (Unity Games) and international levels (WAUG, FASU and FISU).

The future of GUSA is exciting as GUSA is in discussion with other tertiary institutions in order to move towards including all tertiary institutions in “university” sports, as is the case in many other countries.