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Intent was good, implementation must improve
By Edison Jefford
The Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) was legitimised in mid-February when the federation held its long-overdue Annual General Meeting. David Patterson officially became the President after acting in the post for several months.
Ann Gordon
David Patterson
Patterson had received the support of the Linden-sub association while the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) presented a slate for the elections. Trevor Rose lost against what was, and perhaps still remains, a good administrative team.
Rose, who is the President of the GABA, had said that his reason for contesting the Presidency of the federation was that he felt that Patterson, a Vice-President in the Godwin McPherson-led GABF, should not assume the post without an electoral contest.
However, Patterson won and the blueprint for the development of national basketball appeared in the press. The document covered training for officials, administrators, basketball at junior, senior male and female levels and local, regional and global exposure of teams.
In an assessment of how the federation has performed this year, it is only fair to measure success and failure of the federation in the context of its own blueprint. This writer will categorically use that yardstick in this review of the national basketball federation.
As it relates to local training, the GABF was expected to have a Level I International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Coaches’ Course in Guyana in September, but for undisclosed reasons, there was no such programme and no word from the federation.
Internationally, New Amsterdam’s Kirk Fraser attended the ‘Children of the Word Youth Camp’ in Istanbul, Turkey, August 24–31. Two young local basketball players-one male and one female had the opportunity of attending the forum with Fraser.
The expenses for the camp were provided through FIBA. The camp took place during the World Championships and every FIBA-affiliate was offered an opportunity to be represented. Guyana seized its opportunity and was duly represented in Turkey.
Additionally, Kwakwani’s mainstay in local basketball, Ann Gordon finally got a well-deserved chance to advance her coaching ability when she was named as this country’s candidate for the Olympic Solidarity Basketball Coaching Programme in Hungary.
An International Olympic Solidarity (IOC) scholarship was offered through the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA). Gordon had claimed three of four titles at the National Schools’ Basketball Festival this year and was rightly rewarded as a result.
So as it relates to training for officials and administrators, no one was trained locally as an effect of the FIBA Coaches’ Course falling through, but two coaches and two young basketball players were able to get dissimilar forms of international training.
The GABF had planned initially to host a mega International Basketball Series in August, which would have included the Washington D.C Jammers, New York All-Stars and South Carolina All-Stars; Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados in the male competition.
The female teams would have been Guyana, South Carolina All-Stars and the Washington D.C Women with a few Canadian players. United States-based Coaches, Larry Davis and Michaela Burnett were to accompany these women units to Guyana.
This event would have created the perfect platform for the development of both male and female basketball in Guyana, but unfortunately owed to reasons given as flight problems among others a diluted International Series occurred with D.C Jammers alone.
Despite not having the presence of the other teams and women’s basketball being again placed at backburner, Guyana’s male team gave a valiant effort against the D.C Jammers, creating chances to win, but failed to finish strong against the visiting Jammers.
The GABF had partnered with Wildfire Entertainment to host the International Series, which was held at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall. Once again, the Jammers rescued local basketball with an outstanding track record of support for the national calendar.
Again, women’s basketball was sidelined when Guyana’s female team was unable to compete in a friendly series in Antigua as it had done two years ago. It was generally another poor year for a dedicated bunch of female basketball players in Guyana.
So as it relates to basketball at the junior, senior male and female level, only the senior males had the privilege of competing under a GABF programme. Maybe the New Year will be different for the performance of the federation and its new administration.
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