ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of these critical years from the perspective of sport and physical education. It describes the variety of sporting activities practiced and the institutions in charge of them. Western forms of physical education and modern sports arrived in Ethiopia through the activities of social and political elites who were in contact with the European world of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Returning from their studies in Europe, the young nobles brought to Ethiopia the Western cultural model, in which sport figures prominently. Another factor in the introduction of modern sporting activities is Ethiopians’ contact with the Westerners arriving in the nation’s new capital, Addis Ababa, in the early 1900s, most of whom were teachers and the clergy. Ethiopian youngsters attended these meetings—some with envy and others with more reserve. However, in 1937, a separate sports office for native Ethiopians was established with the name Sport Office for the Indigenous, the Italian Directorate for Political Affairs.
