INTERNATIONAL BASKETBALL Federation (FIBA) instructor, Nelson Isley, who is currently on the island as part of a coaching clinic being held in Jamaica, says despite the challenges the course brings, the first week has been fruitful.
According to Nelson, he was pleased with the “on-court” presentation that the local coaches displayed during their practical assessment.
“I think it’s been very good, most of all, this course is very important. We’ve started a new process in FIBA in the certification of coaches, as the way it was before, we didn’t have much of an assessment to value the coaches.
“It’s been a tough week because it’s not an easy course, we worked really hard and I think the course itself is going extremely well, but the most important thing was the on-court presentation that each coach had to present,” said Isley.
As part of their assignment, the coaches had to show their knowledge and how they would have adapted to challenges presented in a typical basketball game.
“Each were given a topic or assignment, one could be how to defend the pick and roll or how do you attack a zone defence, so they (coaches) had to go out there for 20 minutes and they had to present this to the other candidates. Are they able to correct a situation if things go wrong? So those are just some of the criteria we had to use and evaluate them on whether they’re competent or not competent,” said Isley.
Isley, who has visited well over 100 countries, lauded the efforts of Jamaica as the standard-bearers in the Caribbean for requesting courses of this nature over the years.
“This is the first course in the Caribbean that was under the Olympics solidarity coaching course programme and Jamaica has basically been the leader in asking for these courses, and this is the first one here under the technical course programme. Grenada has also petitioned, and they will have theirs at the end of January 2023.”
National basketball coordinator, Elfraito Remikie, is pleased with what he’s seeing so far from the coaching clinic.
“I think this is one of the better coaching courses that we’ve had so far. These are all the top coaches on the island that were given the opportunity to be part of this first course,” he said.
Remikie also added that all 22 coaches involved in the staging of this year’s coaching clinic will be involved in the basketball programme in Jamaica starting at the grassroots level.
“It was good because we had players from various schools, they came and the coaches could use them and demonstrate whatever assignment was given to them. These coaches will also be fully involved in the national programme starting at the primary school and prep school level,” said Remikie.
