SPORT

Stanley Allotey

This was the period that Prempeh won the National Inter-Collegiate Athletics in Accra for the upteenth time. As for the Regional contest in Kumasi our "TEAM C" had no challenger. Those were the days when the school's dynamic "die-hard" supporters union used to sing our famous and inspiring song "OBI BEWU KWA" which literally means: "Somebody's son will die a useless death in trying to overtake a Prempeh athlete on the track." Pictured on the left is versatile Allotey doing the high jump at Prempeh in 1964.

Charles "Chalito" Amankwah: national hockey phenom who captained the celebrated 1976 Ashanti Regional hockey Championship squad

Senior Apeadu: national athletic legend who holds the Ashanti pole vault record and is considered Ghana's best in a sport in which there rarely are any skilled or talented participants

Samuel Owusu "Torino" Mensah: Owusu Mensah is also considered among the greatest of athletes and Olympians in the history of African athletics. For his excellence in athletics, Ghana's First President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah sent his Minister of Sports (then Director of Sports), Mr. Ohene-Djan to our campus to crown him "The Osagyefo Golden Boy." Not only was this Presidential citation confered upon him at school, but the President also caused a national radio show to be focused on this Prempeh hero. A history of Prempeh College is not complete without the mention of Mr. Owusu-Mensah. He put Prempeh on the world map in those days by excelling in the Olympic Games. Perhaps his most famous victory was his defeat of S.S. Abugri.

Anthony Amoako: national javelin thrower whose achievement of a distance of 59.67 ranks 6th on Ghana's all-time list.

Obeng "Santo Jr" Ntiforo: national athlete in the 100m, 200m and 4X100m relay whose 200m time of 20.99 set in 1979 currently ranks 21st on Ghana's all time list. He even competed for Ghana in the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Canada.

Joseph William deGraft Johnson Riverson: Captain of the 1955 Prempeh's famous athletics team, this Irish international athlete was awarded full Blue in athletics by Ireland's Queen's University of Belfast in 1958. Former 100m champion of Queen's University of Belfast, 100m champion of Northern Ireland and 100m champion of All-Ireland. He was Irish international athlete from 1959 to 1961 and he represented Ireland at the Edinburgh Highland Games in 1959 and at the Welsh Games in 1961.

Pierre Lisk: Sierra Leonean national athlete who was listed among the Top 50 best sprinters in the world when he ran for Prempeh in 1992. He has kept the Sierra Leonean flag flying high in the World Championship of Athletics and the Olympic Games. He became the first University of Kansas Jayhawk Olympian since 1976 when he ran in the 200 meters and the 4x100m relay for Sierra Leone at the 1996 Summer Olympics. He also posted Sierra Leone national record times of 20.86 in the 200 and 39.81 in the 4x100m relay and qualified for the finals of the 200m and 4x100m in 1998 and 1999 World Championships.

Augustus "Mafia" Lawson: national athletic legend who is considered as one of the best in 400m hurdles. His time of 52.7secs set on 9/4/87 is eighth on Ghana's all time list. He is also a member of the quartet that set the then 4x400m record of 3:09.57secs (17/8/85), which is now ranked 9th on Ghana's all-time list.

Ebenezer "Pasha" Lawson: Like his brother Augustus, Ebenezer was also a key member of Ghana's national team.

Owusu "GoalKing" Yeboah: One of the best soccer players of his time, he was a member of the Prempeh Hockey squad that won the 1976 Championship at Wesco. He was the only person to have won the Goal King award throughout his whole collegiate career and was regarded as one of the national team's indispensable players in those days. However, his contributions to the Black Sticks (Ghana's national Hockey team) was short-lived becaused he passed away when he was helping with the cocoa evacuation excercise introduced by the then military government AFRC. A legend that he was, his body was brought to Prempeh from UST for students to pay their last respect to him. He is a candidate for "The Greatest of all time."

Martin Osei Nyarko: Tano Bofoakwa FC.

Kojo Duodu: national athletics and table tennis and hockey legend who is renowned for his versatility. While at Prempeh, the great Duodu represented the school in almost every sporting discipline: hockey, basketball, volley, table-tennis and athletics (hurdling). He brought home so many table tennis titles before defecting to AMASS for his A-Levels. The national hurdler once owned the national records in both 110m and the 400m hurdles. His time of 53.5secs in the 400m hurdles now ranks 10th on Ghana's all-time list, while his time of 14.61secs in the 110m hurdles now ranks 5th. Moreover, Duodu was unbeatable in table tennis in Ghana while he was at Prempeh.

Abednego "Pirrow" Agyei Mensah : the famous 100m, 200m and 400m runner who was more proficient and supreme in the 200m and 400m. He was selected for the then Ghana national team and won a lot of laurels. One of the most domineering athlete of his time, he was known for his remarkable ability to come from 60 yards behind the leading runners to win the race. He anchored Prempeh's and Ashanti's famous 4x400 meter relay teams, and even if he received a baton from 60 yards behind the leading runner, he always went on to win. He was a "one-man relay team."

Eric Goloe: the Ashanti "Athlete of the Year" for 2004 who set the 100 meter record in 2005 and was chosen as the sole representative of Ghana in the 2005 World Youth Athletics championship.

Abukari "Jaafia" Mohammed: the great long distance runner and former marathon record holder who won several cross-country races for the Ashanti team. He is listed among the top 5 best Ghanaian marathon runners of all time.

Joshua Owusu: A great long, tripple and high-jumper from the late 60s. He was one of the most feared athletes in the nation during the National Sports Festival at the Accra Sports Stadium. He won all the Ashanti and Ghana inter-colleges long jump, triple jump and high jump titles in 1968/69. He went on to compete for Ghana at the 1972 Olympics and also the Commonwealth Games. His personal record in long jump was 26ft 10 1/2 ins. He won super-zonals in Long Jump, Triple Jump and High Jump and helped Prempeh in 400x4 Relays as well. His 2.03 in high jump is currently 10th on Ghana's all-time list. While Prempeh's Ahey hold the national record in long jump with 8.17 (set in Kampala on 6/10/62), Owusu's 8.09 (set on 24/5/74) is 3rd on the all-time list, followed by Ahey's worst jump - 7.97 set on 5/5/72 - which is 4th on Ghana's all-time list.

"Bosco" Nketia: A superb sprinter who competed in 100 and 200 meters and the relays. He was a stimulus for other great athletes like Santo and Wallacas.

David Nti-Berko: national tripple-jumper, Olympian and 5-time NCAA all-American in tripple jump. His best jump of 26.03 set in 1995, is 4th on Ghana's all-time list.

Yussif Alhassan Chibsah: who captained the national football team in the 2004 Athens Olympics. This Kumasi Asante Kotoko FC midfielder who stars in the African Champions League regularly is the captain of Ghana's under-23 National team - the Black Meteors. He played alongside Prempeh's Edmund Owusu Ansah in the 8th All-African Games in October 2003 and won a medal.

Felix Baafi Ntiforo (The Original Santo): who competed for Prempeh from 1961-69 and was the best athlete to come from Ashanti that decade. He was a star of the Ashanti Region Team and the National Team.

Joseph "Wallacas" Adu-Appiah: a champion athlete of the star-studded 1970s Ashanti teams whomade the Ashanti Region Team and the National Team.

Samuel Adade: the West African 100m and 200m junoir champion. In the All-Africa Juvenile Athletics Competition held in Nigeria in May, 2004, Adade of the Class of 2002, popularly known as Maurice Green, won the 100m and 200m races as well as the 400m race. During the 4x100 race, Samuel Adade led the Ghanaians to take the gold and thus set a new record at the olympics in Nigeria. He was a reserve in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Last Updated on April 11, 2006

Health & Science | Sport | Government | The Law | Royalty | The Church | Business & Industry | Radio/TV/Film & Journalism | Poets, Writers, Scholars, Dons | Engineering | Other