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YBG has a place, but order must prevail

Sep 10, 2014 Sports

By Edison Jefford
Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) has a place on the annual calendar, make no mistake about that but it raises serious questions about its character if it continues to paddle against the tide of order, which the national federation is attempting to impose.
The YBG programme that hosts the National Schools Basketball Festival (NSBF) is an authentic youth programme; it has a great vision, and its structure is correct with conferencing nationwide, before the top teams converge in Georgetown for the final.
The NSBF turned nine this year, which among enduring sport activity in Guyana, represented an important milestone being just one year short of a decade. In addition, it characterise the building of a formidable foundation of the nursery of basketball in Guyana.
With that said, and having achieved its goals over the years in the absence of a proactive national federation in the form of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF), YBG cannot be so short-sighted to stumble in a soluble administrative ditch.
Basketball in Guyana needs the NSBF, but what basketball also needs is structure and order. The YBG programme cannot run in contravention to the rules and regulations of the GABF, which is the governing body for all basketball in Guyana. The GABF has that mandate from International Basketball Federation (FIBA).
Understandably, in the absence of a stronger and properly constituted national federation, NSBF forged ahead. But in the advent of a federation that understands its role and functions locally, the YBG programme has to fall in line with the tenets of the federation.
In a previous article, where I called for stakeholder support for GABF in enforcing its relevance, I angled this subject from the perspective of the federation. The result was a response via Guyana Times calling for an end to a “devious and unfounded crusade” on the YBG programme in which several inaccuracies and isolation of holistic thought surfaced.
I will not, however, respond to the mischievous attempts to denigrate my work in the context of libel. I am sure Chris Bowman, who is the head of YBG, knows how to deal with matters, which he believes to be libellous; publishing a letter in one section of the print media is certainly not the way.
With that aside, the fact remains the fact: YBG is a good programme that needs to appreciate the existence of the parent body for basketball in Guyana. That was and remains my point. The YBG programme cannot claim to lead parents and students when it is in contravention of the rules and regulation of the national federation.
As I had written before and I maintain: “The federation is simply asking that programmes such as YBG comply with its regulations and rules.” Why is compliance such a difficult task for the YBG programme that has done most things right up until now?
The National Sports Commission cannot continue to disregard the role of the national federation in the selection of national teams, opting rather to allow YBG to select the team. Bowman would be untoward to defend YBG selecting a national team ahead of the federation, especially since all other associations are allowed to select their teams for the Inter-Guiana Games.
This is a simple matter, YBG must hasten to bring itself under the umbrella of the federation, and obtain the right empowerment to function. I don’t think that Bowman and YBG want disorder to be one of the lessons their programme teach student-athletes. Bowman can get emotional, and on his haughty horse again and rant in the Guyana Times, but until he does so, he will undermine an entire decade of his work.

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