It was a victorious moment for Mxolisi Blessing Mthembu, a final year Nautical Science student who was recently announced as a winner of the DUT Sport Teams’ competition. Mthembu has provided the winning nickname for the DUT Sport Team.

Last year, 2021, the Department of Sport Administration hosted an online competition looking for a common name for the sport teams and the poster was shared through Dut4life emails, and the closing date was the 30th of September 2021. The competition was open to DUT students, staff, alumni. The winning name that given for DUT Sport teams is DUT Scribers.

“I received an email of a competition to provide a common name for DUT Sport teams and I took a decision to join. When I entered the competition, at the back of my mind I knew that I was going to be faced with fierce competition and that the odds were stacked up against me if I wanted to at least stand a chance of being considered as one of the contenders to win the competition,” said an excited Mthembu.

He further explained that the pressure he had never deterred him as he knew the one and only way he could have had a chance to win the competition was if he thought out of the box and came up with something catchy and extraordinary that would also be easy to singalong to. Mthembu than came up with the term ‘DUT SCRIBERS’.

“When coming up with the name I had a lot of ideas in my mind, but it was after I had written down the names of all the campuses of DUT that a thought came to my head to take the first letter of the name of each campus and combine all those letters to form the word. Even after gathering all those letters, and coming up with a word was not as easy but after several tries, I came up with the word SCRIBERS, ” he said.

In addition, Mthembu said that a SCRIBER is a sharp pointed tool that is used to mark cut wood. he then related that tool with DUT’s Sport teams as they are our sharp pointed tools that are used to mark and make history.

The name stands for:
S- Steve Biko Campus
C- City Campus
R- Riverside Campus
I- Indumiso Campus
B- Brickfield Campus
E- (Additional letter)
R- Ritson Campus
S- Ml Sultan Campus

“The letter E is to symbolise everyone. All the DUT students are allowed to join any sport of their choices, it is not for certain campuses,” he said.

Mxolisi won a R3000 voucher to buy sports apparel.

Head of Department, Mr Bongani Yengwa said: ” As part of the DUT ENVISION2030, the Department of Sport Administration wants to offer a curriculum that promote innovation to generate new knowledge and solutions. As the department we are happy to announce the new name that will be used from now going forward.”

Pictured: Mxolisi Blessing Mthembu.

Sinethemba Njoko