As the 8th Kwara State Sports Festival gets underway, the attention will naturally be on the young athletes whose energy, ambition and determination will define the competition.

But behind the scenes, the success of the Games will also depend heavily on the experience, knowledge and organisational capacity of the veterans entrusted with turning the vision of the festival into reality.

One of those men is Dr. Steve Abiodun Olarinoye, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for KWAFEST 2026.

His appointment is more than a recognition of his long years in sports administration. It is also a deliberate attempt to connect the experience of the generation that built Nigeria’s sporting structures with the aspirations of a new generation of athletes.

As the Chairman of the Main Organising Committee, Mallam Bola Mogaji, explained, the inclusion of veterans in the organisation of the Games was intended not only to benefit from their wealth of experience, but also to use their presence as a source of motivation for the young athletes participating in the festival.

And few veterans fit that assignment more appropriately than Olarinoye.

Born on January 1, 1957, in Lagos and an indigene of Omupo in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Olarinoye’s relationship with sport dates back to his school days.

He was a member of the football team of St. Michael’s Primary School, Omupo, before continuing his sporting activities at Government Secondary School, Ilorin, where he participated in both football and table tennis.

In 1973, he represented Kwara State at the National Sports Festival, giving him an early personal understanding of the importance of the Games as a platform for discovering and developing sporting talent.

His sporting journey continued through Kano Teachers’ College, Advanced Teachers’ College and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He also played for registered football clubs including NEPA FC and Leventis FC in Kano.

That transition from athlete to administrator would eventually define a remarkable career spanning several decades.

Olarinoye’s professional career has taken him through teaching, national sports administration, football administration and international sports management.

He worked with the National Sports Commission and rose through various positions in the Federal Ministry of Sports and national sports administration.

His football administration experience is particularly extensive. He was Assistant Secretary-General in charge of National Competitions with the Nigeria Football Association, (now Nigeria Football Federation), Assistant Executive Secretary of the Professional League, Executive Secretary of the Professional League (now Nigeria Premier Football League), and later Head of the International Competitions Department.

He was therefore, part of the administrative machinery that helped shape professional football in Nigeria at a formative period. He was also involved in the commencement of professional league competitions in Nigeria in 1990. His experience, however, has never been limited to football.

Olarinoye has held significant positions in weightlifting administration, including Secretary-General of the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation and membership of its board. He is also the chairman the Kwara State Weightlifting Association and served in various capacities within national and international sports structures.

His academic credentials reinforce that practical experience. He holds a B.Ed. in Physical and Health Education, an M.Ed. in Sports Management, a Higher Diploma in Advanced Sports Management from Germany and a Ph.D. in Sports Administration and Management.

He has also undertaken courses in Olympic administration, CAF sports administration, football development, Olympic studies and sports management.

In other words, the man sitting at the head of the KWAFEST LOC is not merely an administrator by title. He is a product of the sporting system from the grassroots to the international stage.

Perhaps the strongest argument for Olarinoye’s leadership of the LOC is the breadth of competitions and sporting programmes he has encountered.

His administrative record includes participation in CAF and WAFU competitions, the All Africa Games, FIFA youth competitions, the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and major international weightlifting championships.

He was Administrative Secretary to the Nigerian Olympic football team that won the historic gold medal at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games.

He was also involved in the organisation of major events including the 1999 World Youth Championship in Nigeria, the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations co-hosted by Ghana and Nigeria, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the 2003 All Africa Games, the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the London 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

These experiences expose an administrator to the realities of organising sports at different levels: logistics, accreditation, competition management, facilities, officials, athletes, protocol, discipline, anti-doping, transportation and the countless details that determine whether a sporting event succeeds or fails.

That reservoir of experience is now being brought home to Kwara.

The 8th Kwara State Sports Festival is not simply another competition on the state’s sporting calendar. For many young participants, it represents an opportunity to be seen, tested and challenged against some of the best emerging talents in the state.

For coaches and officials, it provides an opportunity to identify promising athletes.

For the state, it is a platform for assessing the depth of its sporting talent and strengthening the foundation for future representation at national competitions. This is where the presence of Olarinoye becomes particularly significant.

As LOC Chairman, he is expected to provide the technical and administrative direction necessary to ensure that the Games are conducted efficiently and professionally. His understanding of competition management is helping the LOC anticipate challenges rather than merely react to them.

His knowledge of athlete development should also reinforce the need to make the festival about more than medals and trophies. The ultimate value of KWAFEST should be measured by what happens to the athletes after the closing ceremony.

Who gets discovered? Who receives further training? Who progresses to national competitions? Who eventually represents Nigeria? Those are the questions that can give the festival a lasting legacy.

Perhaps the most important dimension of Olarinoye’s involvement is the example he represents to the young athletes.

For an aspiring athlete participating in KWAFEST, seeing a man who started as a schoolboy footballer and progressed through competitive sports into national and international sports administration can provide a powerful lesson.

His story demonstrates that sports is not necessarily a journey that ends when an athlete leaves the field. There are opportunities in coaching, administration, officiating, event management, sports science, governance and other areas. The veteran administrators therefore, become living textbooks.

Their experiences can help young athletes understand discipline, commitment, professionalism and the importance of education alongside sporting talent.

This is precisely the wider objective identified by Mogaji in bringing veterans into the organisation of the Games.

The young athletes should not only compete against one another; they should also have the opportunity to interact with, learn from and draw inspiration from those who travelled the road before them. Olarinoye’s presence also provides an important bridge between two generations of Kwara sports.

The older generation carries the history, struggles and institutional memory of sports development in the state.

The younger generation carries the talent, ambition and modern expectations required to take the state’s sporting fortunes forward. KWAFEST provides the meeting point.

With veterans providing guidance and younger athletes providing the energy and ambition, the festival can become more than a sporting event. It can become a mechanism for transferring knowledge and preserving sporting culture. For Kwara, that is an opportunity worth maximising.

The real success of the 8th KWAFEST will ultimately extend beyond the medal table. It will be about the standards established, the athletes discovered, the officials trained, the facilities utilised and the sporting culture strengthened.

It will also be about whether the young participants leave the Games believing that they can go beyond the boundaries of Kwara and compete successfully at national, continental and global levels. That is where Olarinoye’s experience becomes invaluable.

A man who has seen Nigerian athletes compete on some of the world’s biggest sporting stages understands the distance between discovering talent and turning talent into excellence.

As Chairman of the LOC, his challenge is therefore, both immediate and long-term: to deliver a successful festival while helping create an environment in which the next generation of Kwara athletes can begin their own journey towards bigger stages. The 8th KWAFEST may last only a few days, but its impact should last much longer.

And with veterans such as Dr. Steve Olarinoye at the heart of its organisation, the Games have an opportunity to become not merely a celebration of young sporting talent, but a bridge between Kwara’s sporting past, its vibrant present and its ambitious future.