"My name is Alain Clotaire Feze and I was born in Batouri in the east region of Cameroon. I am a family man and an academic, with a law degree and also a Masters in business law. In 2003 I registered at the INJS (National Institute of Youth and Sports), where I obtained a diploma: Professor of Physical Education and Sports. I continued to study and in 2005 I obtained a second Masters degree, this time in Human Rights, and then a third in International Humanitarian Rights, which was followed by a fourth in International Criminal Law.”
Mr Feze took a break from academia at that time to focus on work and family but continued later and in 2015 read for a Research Masters Degree in Comparative Community Law. He used that to form the foundation for his enrolment on a PhD programme in Public Law and defended his thesis in June 2020, with an authorisation to publish the thesis.
“I benefited from two Olympic scholarships which enabled me to obtain a diploma in sciences applied to sport and in high level training in sport, from the Académie de Lausanne, and a post-graduate diploma in Olympic Sciences at the International Olympic Academy of Olympia in Greece.
Sports-wise, my father enrolled me in a judo club when I was 8 because I was turbulent. At that time I was in primary education at the Nkongsamba Annex School. I later went to Bafoussam to further my studies. It was in that city that I met Mr Bell who made me the judoka I became. With him I discovered competition and joined the cadet national team, then junior and eventually senior in 1993.
I did not have an extraordinary career as a judoka at the international level. I won a few medals at the City of Yaoundé tournament but in 1996 I had a serious knee injury that kept me off the mats for almost 3 years. In 2000 I resumed competition and won the national championships at -90kg. I did the same the next year but then decided to stop competing.
I have a career as an academic and a career as a sports coach and as the latter, I have been supervising the judo club at the University of Dschang since 2005. I was appointed in 2010 as National Head Coach of the men’s judo team, a position I held until 2013 and then again from 2017 until today.
As far as my career at the Ministry of Higher Education is concerned, I was head of the internship department at the University of Dschang, a position I held until November 2022. I was also interim head of the Sports Activities Division there. In November 2022, I was appointed head of the division of planning and development and this is what my career path is about. I also work as an associate lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Since 2018, I have also been working at the Faculty of Education of the University of Ngaoundéré, in the Sports, Health and Leisure team, where I teach combat and sports law courses at masters level.”
There are many challenges for African judoka, not just the universally understood issues of injury. “My main difficulty being a judoka living in the west, residing in Bafoussam and then in Dschang. I had to travel all the time to Yaoundé, the capital city, to attend training camps with the national team. Thus, I was regularly absent from class and forced to catch up on my return. I lost 2 to 3 weeks of lessons in just one academic year. It was also difficult to recover, from fatigue, with a lack of sleep. There was a lack of training equipment and I had only one judogi that I used for both training and competitions.
Despite all the difficulties listed above, judo had no negative impact on my school and university life, I was a constant student. I managed to do most of what was required to complete each stage of my education and judo has brought me a lot. It instilled in me many values such as endurance, determination, courage, perseverance, faith, self-confidence and hard work.
My father also practised sports and he taught me to combine studies and sport. When I was a student I arrived home every evening at 8:30pm I only had time to shower and eat. I got up very early to study before school, with 2 hours of training after class.”
Alain Feze seized the opportunity offered to him to explain to young people who want to embark on a sporting career while continuing their studies, that they must surpass themselves by making additional efforts, including huge sacrifices, ”To do so, they have to put leisure and other outings with friends on hold. It is a question of focussing all your attention on studies and sport. Even television and social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Tiktok are disturbing elements which can destabilise you and divert you from your project.
Parents are also essential guides who help young people not only to establish a timetable adapted to their age but also, and above all, to bring them to respect it. It is the discipline instilled in them by their parents that will allow them to succeed in both sport and education. Unlike teenagers and adults, children should not remove leisure from their daily lives because it has been shown that they learn best through visuals, games and other playful activities.
On the other hand, we should make youths understand that they will not be able to live solely from sports and that they must better their future by focussing on their studies. When we look at the current world, the most accomplished judoka are often those who have two jobs, in particular a sporting activity and a professional activity on which they count and depend once they can no longer practise high-level sport.
The best judoka of Cameroon from my generation are scattered all over the world. Those who practised sports while furthering their studies or learning another profession, today live from this profession, but many of the champions of my era live a miserable life. Today life has caught up with them. With the weight of age, they have become less profficient in the sporting field and as their only activity was sport, they were reduced to begging and to other resourcefulness.
Unfortunately, in Cameroon there is no uniform training process for young judoka. It is necessary to develop training centres, to plan for and monitor young talents throughout their career. If more resources were available among seniors, it might be desirable to replace some national gatherings with international training camps, especially on the eve of international competitions. This will allow athletes to have a different perspective on the practice of sports. For example, one of the best Cameroonian judoka, Vanessa Mballa, owes her success in part to the multiple experiences acquired by competiting all over the world.
I think we have qualified coaches in Cameroon, not just in judo but in most sports. We still have this preconceived idea that what comes from outside is better. Admittedly, it is beneficial to train away because the athlete who trains abroad is closer to the international competition venues with which they must become familiar. This opportunity is not offered to most local athletes. All this sustains public opinion that to succeed in the world of sports and more specifically in judo you have to go abroad.
With all of this in mind I would suggest, firstly, to become good students in any field. It is necessary to develop skills because the primary objective of life is to be able to fulfil basic needs of food, clothing, housing, health care and self-fulfillment. I would simply advise children to go to school. To do judo, you have to do well at school too, regardless of the training you do. Studies and sport must go hand in hand. The proof? You have it in front of you; I am head coach of the senior national judo team, moreover, a university lecturer, head of my division, an expert in several fields and a doctor of public Law. My path is far from being the path to follow since everyone has his own way but it could still inspire young children who can do a thousand times better than me. It's all possible but you will have to work with faith, determination, perseverance and patience. Nothing great can be done without these values. Have values, believe in yourself and above all work hard.”
Source: This interview with Alain Feze was conducted by Alex Tchawa