ASE Athletics
Who We Are
At the African School of Economics (ASE), one of our core values is the provision of equal-opportunity access to global standards of learning to young people across the continent. We have achieved tremendous success in training young Africans from every part of the region in economics and related fields, who have proceeded to the top universities in the world such as Harvard and NYU for doctoral programs, and also to top positions in such globally pre-eminent institutions as the World Bank and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
With our new department, ASE Athletics, we are applying our tradition of excellence in providing a nexus for undiscovered athletic talent, as well as the academic and sports training to enable them subsist at the very minimum. ASE also offers global opportunities and liaisons that will allow our students to function and thrive at the highest levels of their craft, anywhere in the world.
Core Services
ASE Athletics is a service provider in 5 key areas:
- Intensive, accelerated academic certificate programs for athletes at a University level, to provide essential educational foundation and employability
- Recruitment of top athletic talent for college and other sporting opportunities in the US, and for the ASE sports teams
- Helping find future opportunities for our students in sports business, management, and analysis
- Enlisting top athletes from around the world to provide scholarships and mentoring to fledgling talents
- Through our radio and television programs, podcasts, newsletters and blogs, providing premium sports communications features and analyses from the experts
What We Do
the ASE athletics academic certificate programme
ASE Athletics has designed an intensive, fast-tracked tertiary certificate programme for athletes, that will provide them the thorough academic grounding to meaningfully improve their employment prospects, and supplement their sports placement prospects.
The programme covers Computing and Data Analytics, Finance and Management, Languages and Communication, and African History, and it will be preceded by a foundational course in Languages and Mathematics where needed.
the ASE athletics sports programme
ASE Athletics will comprise of sports teams in Soccer and Basketball, and athletes in all areas of Track and Field. Athletes will be camped and trained at the ASE Athletics locations within our regional campuses in Nigeria, Cote d'Ïvoire and Benin Republic.
ASE Athletics teams will compete in local Basketball and Soccer leagues, and our Track and Field athletes will compete in local and international championships, to gain exposure.
equal opportunity access
ASE Athletics, in keeping with our guiding values at the African School of Economics, will ensure equal opportunity access to its programmes and benefits, across gender, economic backgrounds, religion and nationalities. Much like our academic campuses, ASE Athletics’ communities will personify the exemplary, rich diversity that is the ideal which Africa's unity and development must be founded on.
sports data and computation
In concert with the ASE academic arm, ASE Athletics will develop original, bespoke systems and metrics for gauging, analyzing and categorizing athlete- potential, compatibility of athletes to different sporting systems and environments, and athlete- performance; and will collect, process and archive vital sporting data around local talent for sharing with partners of interest (scouts, sports teams, universities).
In large part, sports data collation at ASE Athletics will be enabled through novel and rigorous academic studies.
memorializing africa's sports heroes
The Communications component of ASE Athletics, in addition to producing compelling written and audiovisual content on contemporary sporting affairs and talent, will also, importantly, explore the history of sports in Africa in documentaries, and immortalize the lives, accomplishments and legacies of sporting champions from the past.
We will introduce present generations of young Africans to past sporting heroes, and inspire them with their stories.
ASE fitness centres
Fitness Centers will be located at every ASE Athletics hub (our Nigeria, Benin and Cote dÏvoire campuses, for starters), and will house top-notch fitness and training equipment and front-line fitness, medical and nutrition professionals. The centers will be open to the public to promote fitness and healthy living, while also catering to the ASE Athletes.
engendering the success mindset
Succeeding at the highest levels of sports requires extreme extents of mental strength. Athletes who have distinguished themselves on this stage and better yet, those who have sustained their success here for prolonged periods have a great deal of experience-based knowledge to impart to young people, about the mental tools required for the sort of distinction they achieved, which knowledge cuts across every discipline.
At ASE Athletics, we believe that there is tremendous value in infusing the top-athlete mindset of Desire, Discipline and Determination into the general education of young people to catalyze their success in different areas. We provide this important orientation through the interactions we facilitate between our students and our global athlete partners.
life coaching
We recognize that most successes are driven by inspiration acquired in youth, and that there is generally a dearth of proper life and career guidance for a lot of young Africans. We therefore place a high premium on our life coaching program, where our global athlete partners offer mentoring and life coaching to athletes, to inspire and guide them.
This life coaching will help athletes to navigate their lives and career prospects in the best possible ways, and provide a crucial, emotional support system for them amidst the immensely challenging world of competitive sports.
Travis Martial Wantchekon
Director
Travis is the Director of ASE Athletics. He is a project manager, scout, and an ex-New York Red Bulls academy & college athlete, with a Master’s Degree in Sports Management at the Real Madrid Graduate School.
ASE Athletics Partners
ASE Athletics has established partnerships with universities in the US, renowned professional athletes on the world stage, and prominent stakeholders in African and global sports. We are at advanced levels of talks with many other potential partners, and will continually forge these critical liaisons.