A Ukrainian Summer: where to go, what to do...
Sitch announces 31st consecutive Sports School at Verkhovyna resort
by Omelan Twardowsky and Orest Popovych
NEWARK, N.J. - In this Olympic year, the Ukrainian Athletic-Educational Association Chornomorska Sitch is organizing its 31st consecutive sports camp for Ukrainian boys and girls age 6-18.
Each summer over the past 30 years the Sitch Sports School has conducted a successful sports training program for Ukrainian youth. In this respect, Sitch has become a leader not only among the Ukrainian American sports organizations, but also among the best mainstream American sports camps - some of which have even adopted Sitch's training methods.
In the course of its history the Sitch Sports School has produced a number of outstanding athletes who have excelled in the American sports arena and even in Ukraine - among them, Bohdan Nedilsky of Wisconsin, who became a player for the Karpaty Soccer Club in Lviv; and Yaro Dachniwsky of Chicago, who first became an outstanding soccer player for the SUM Kryla club of Chicago and eventually the goalie for the U.S. Olympic handball team that competed in the Atlanta Olympiad in 1996.
Other noteworthy graduates of the Sports School include Stephan Kachnij of Detroit, a successful soccer player; Andrew and George Bakun, soccer stars of Newark's Chornomorska Sitch, winners of many league championships as well as gold medalists in the 1988 Ukrainian Olympiad. Andrew Bakun also became a two-time gold medalist as a member of Ukrainian all-star soccer teams in the Free Olympiads of 1980 and 1984. Successful soccer careers have been enjoyed also by Michael Hlushko and Bohdan Kucyna, both of Yonkers.
Excellence in volleyball also was achieved by Sitch graduates. Brothers Nestor and Markian Paslawsky became champions of many AA-class tournaments of the U.S. Volleyball Association, and Nestor was selected to the U.S. National Team.
Based on its record of success, the Chornomorska Sitch Sports School in 1973 was accorded the official sanction of the Ukrainian Sports Federation of the U.S.A. and Canada (USCAK), affirmed at that time by USCAK President Roman Kucil and Secretary Yaroslav Chorostil.
The athletic-educational programs of the Sitch Sports School have earned high grades in the press from such well-known sports activists and writers as Dr. Edward Zarsky, Osyp Nowycky, Vasyl Kachmar, as well as such outstanding coaches from Ukraine as Ihor Chupenko, Mykhaylo Rybak, Yuriy Kolb and Volodymyr Kovalov, among others.
In the last few years, the Sitch Sports School has attracted several youngsters from Ukraine as well as Ukrainian Americans.
Maksym Hubsky from Kyiv spoke of his experiences at the 1999 Sports School in an interview with Our Sport magazine: "The instructors were very good and attentive. Discipline was maintained at a level appropriate for a sports camp - all as it should be at a sports school. Proper conditions were provided for the participants, so that they could learn sports. In comparison with youth camps in Ukraine, my experience at the Chornomorska Sitch Sports School surpassed all expectations."
The Sports School is continuing its tradition and in this Olympic year is ready to accept the next crop of students, who will have every opportunity to learn and follow in the footsteps of their outstanding predecessors. The Sports School of Chornomorska Sitch remains a recognized leader in the athletic-educational training of Ukrainian youth.
This year's sports training camp is scheduled for a period of four weeks, from July 23 to August 19, at the Verkhovyna estate in Glen Spey, N.Y.
For an application write to: Ukrainian Sitch Sports School, 680 Sanford Ave., Newark, N J 07106.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 7, 2000, No. 19, Vol. LXVIII
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