Fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment with­in a sport acad­e­my is a spe­cialised branch of fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment that fo­cus­es on en­sur­ing that sport­ing and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties re­main func­tion­al and in op­ti­mal con­di­tion—not on­ly for sched­uled events but al­so on a day-to-day ba­sis. Man­ag­ing these spaces goes be­yond rou­tine main­te­nance. A fa­cil­i­ties team is re­spon­si­ble for the over­all up­keep of these spaces while en­sur­ing that in­ter­nal staff and coach­es across var­i­ous dis­ci­plines un­der­stand their roles in main­tain­ing these fa­cil­i­ties. Even dur­ing down­time, these spaces must re­main ful­ly op­er­a­tional for all users.

Ef­fec­tive fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment in­volves mon­i­tor­ing to­tal main­te­nance costs, im­ple­ment­ing struc­tured main­te­nance plans, and prepar­ing for emer­gen­cies. This ar­ti­cle ex­plores key as­pects of fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment with­in the Acad­e­my of Sport at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and high­lights how pri­ori­tis­ing safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and well-be­ing di­rect­ly con­tributes to the suc­cess and de­vel­op­ment of both stu­dents and staff.

Key ar­eas of fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment with­in Acad­e­my of Sport

Fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment must be aligned with the needs of dif­fer­ent sport­ing dis­ci­plines. Pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance sched­ules are cru­cial to en­sure ath­letes ac­cess well-main­tained equip­ment, grounds, and lock­er room fa­cil­i­ties. It is un­ac­cept­able to have out­dat­ed equip­ment, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing fields, or poor­ly main­tained spaces that hin­der per­for­mance.

Be­yond main­te­nance, dis­cus­sions around fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment al­so en­com­pass bud­get al­lo­ca­tions for the aca­d­e­m­ic year, en­sur­ing that re­sources are dis­trib­uted to cov­er:

• Op­er­a­tional Main­te­nance – Rou­tine up­keep of fa­cil­i­ties

• Busi­ness Op­er­a­tions – En­sur­ing fa­cil­i­ties re­main fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able

• Risk Man­age­ment – Iden­ti­fy­ing and mit­i­gat­ing po­ten­tial haz­ards

• As­set Man­age­ment – Main­tain­ing and im­prov­ing phys­i­cal re­sources

• Tac­ti­cal Is­sue Res­o­lu­tion – Ad­dress­ing un­fore­seen chal­lenges that may arise

Es­tab­lish­ing a sol­id frame­work and bud­get­ing al­lows fa­cil­i­ty leads to plan ef­fec­tive­ly, mit­i­gate risks, and en­sure seam­less op­er­a­tions. Ath­letes are pri­mar­i­ly fo­cused on per­for­mance, and in turn, fa­cil­i­ties teams must en­sure that every el­e­ment—from main­te­nance sched­ules to in-house strate­gies—sup­ports this goal.

Main­te­nance and up­keep

De­vel­op­ing a com­pre­hen­sive main­te­nance strat­e­gy re­quires both in-house re­sources for im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance and a struc­tured plan for rou­tine main­te­nance. Key ar­eas of fo­cus in­clude:

• In­door and out­door courts – Used for mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines and re­quir­ing reg­u­lar up­keep

• Gym fa­cil­i­ties – Es­sen­tial for ath­lete train­ing and over­all fit­ness

• HVAC sys­tems – Main­tain­ing op­ti­mal air qual­i­ty and ven­ti­la­tion

• San­i­ta­tion, hy­giene and Pest Man­age­ment – En­sur­ing clean and safe en­vi­ron­ments for all users

Hav­ing the right team al­lows quick turn­around on mi­nor re­pairs, re­duc­ing down­time and main­tain­ing fa­cil­i­ty ef­fi­cien­cy. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, be­ing in tune with the spaces al­lows fa­cil­i­ty leads to an­tic­i­pate needs and sched­ule main­te­nance proac­tive­ly rather than re­ac­tive­ly. Mod­ern fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment has ex­pand­ed be­yond ba­sic clean­ing and pro­cure­ment so­lu­tions. It now in­cludes a broad­er scope of op­er­a­tions, re­quir­ing ef­fi­cient main­te­nance plan ex­e­cu­tion while align­ing with the four main pil­lars men­tioned ear­li­er.

Role of sports in the aca­d­e­m­ic land­scape

Sports play a cru­cial role in main­tain­ing a work-life bal­ance for stu­dents. How­ev­er, fund­ing for sports pro­grammes of­ten faces scruti­ny. The mis­con­cep­tion that sports are not es­sen­tial must be chal­lenged, as they con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to stu­dent de­vel­op­ment. Col­lab­o­ra­tion with var­i­ous teams and com­mit­tees is vi­tal to align­ing shared goals, iden­ti­fy­ing gaps, and cre­at­ing a health­i­er work and train­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

A well-struc­tured fa­cil­i­ties frame­work en­sures safe, high-qual­i­ty en­vi­ron­ments for ath­letes and stu­dents. Cre­at­ing safe zones with­in the acad­e­my is a top pri­or­i­ty. While re­pairs can be cost­ly, the long-term im­pact on stu­dent suc­cess makes the in­vest­ment worth­while.

To date, I have had the priv­i­lege of con­tribut­ing to:

• Sev­en grad­u­a­tions (one of which birthed our first-ever vale­dic­to­ri­an)

• One in­ter­na­tion­al half-marathon

• Sev­er­al crick­et tour­na­ments-

These ex­pe­ri­ences un­der­score the im­por­tance of a proac­tive ap­proach to fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment. The mind­set of “If it isn’t bro­ken, don’t fix it” must be re­placed with a com­mit­ment to pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance, safe­ty com­pli­ance, and as­set-based man­age­ment. Fa­cil­i­ties teams must be em­pow­ered to main­tain and pro­tect or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­sources while en­sur­ing that sports re­main a vi­tal com­po­nent of acad­e­mia.

Sport and ed­u­ca­tion go hand in hand. It is time to en­cour­age mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions on in­creas­ing fund­ing and spon­sor­ship par­tic­i­pa­tion to sup­port the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of sports pro­grammes. A fa­cil­i­ties lead must re­main or­gan­ised, proac­tive, and in­formed to over­see mul­ti­ple ar­eas ef­fec­tive­ly. Ul­ti­mate­ly, well-main­tained fa­cil­i­ties cre­ate a last­ing im­pres­sion, en­sur­ing the safe­ty and suc­cess of stu­dents, staff, and vis­i­tors alike.

Avaria St Mar­tin-Howe is the act­ing Fa­cil­i­ties Main­te­nance Tech­ni­cian at the St Au­gus­tine Acad­e­my of Sport. She holds a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree, PG Dip in Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment and ProFM cre­den­tials. She is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Project Man­age­ment.