Two former national basketball players who are domiciled in the US Leon Christian and Karen Abrams have a vision to lift the standard of basketball in high schools across Guyana and have started taking the steps necessary to turn that vision into reality.
High school basketball in Guyana will be taken to the next level with the formation of a non-profit organisation headed by overseas-based former national basketball players, Leon Christian and Karen Abrams.
Christian, a former national basketball captain and CARICOM All Star and Abrams, arguably one of the better female players this country has produced founded the Guyana Secondary School Basketball Association (GSS BA) which has set itself the the lofty goal of bringing structure to sport in high schools in Guyana.
Christian, who was back home recently told Stabroek Sport that as former players himself and Abrams wanted only to “give something back.”
“Currently there is no infrastructure or anything to support basketball at that level to the transition from high school, where scholar athletes can get into colleges,” Christian told Stabroek Sport in the exclusive interview.
Christian said the GSSBA was the manifestation of five years of planning between himself and Abrams. It will be introduced into secondary schools in Guyana this September using a phased approach.
Phase one of the programme involves getting all the key people involved while phase two includes the training of local coaches and physical education teachers before phase three kicks off with the League in September.
Towards this end Abrams also paid a visit to Guyana recently and met with key personnel including minster responsible for Sport Dr Frank Anthony, who Abrams said was enthusiastic about the vision, Director of Sport Neil Kumar and Minister of Education Sheik Baksh.
Abrams also met with president of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Feder-ation (GABF), Godwin McPherson while Christian held meetings with the local basketball associations, Mayor Hamilton Green and officials from Linden and Berbice.
Christian said the GSBBA planned, among other things, to create a secondary schools league for boys and girls.
“We are going to have coaches coming in to run the league and coaches working with physical education teachers in the schools,” he said.
“We sent out letters to all the secondary school heads to invite them to a meeting so that we can go over the vision and see how well they can support the vision,” Christian noted adding that the association was not about basketball only.
The meeting with the head-teachers will take place on April 25 at the Waterchris Conference Room at Waterloo Street, Georgetown Guyana.
The goal of these meetings will be to present the programme in its entirety, solicit input from schools and make arrangement for the upgrading or development of school sports facilities to support the GSSBA programme.
“It’s a programme that will pilot them into athletic scholarships and academic scholarships, we will be concentrating on Grade Point Averages (GPA) and stellar performances in schools,” he explained.
“We want to ensure that we create well-rounded and disciplined students who can go out into the world and contribute to society. With that goal in mind we thought it was imperative to invite these people to understand what’s going on,” he said.
Asked whether the association was able to get the support of those individuals and organisations they have been meeting with, Christian said that there has been no negative feedback from any of those stakeholders involved in the programme.
“The support we are talking about is not a financial support but a commitment from students, teachers and those other persons we have met with,” the GSSBA president observed.
Christian emphasised some of the areas that the GSSBA will target with the basketball programme in secondary schools. Among those areas is the teaching of life skills, work ethics and team-work.
According to Christian those are things that are equally essential to success in life as well as sports and they are currently lacking in sports administration in schools. He said that the GSSBA wanted to bridge that gap with its basketball programme.
“I think it is very important to understand what are the roles sports play in making people successful in the corporate world and that kind of environment,” he said.
The GSSBA league will have the capacity to host 960 male and female basketball players representing secondary schools within the cities of Georgetown, Berbice and Linden. The athletes will have to meet a skills and academic requirement to participate.
The GSSBA College recruiting service will work both locally and in the US on behalf of student athletes to maintain statistics, contact international coaches, provide game film and guide talented student athletes through the college athletic scholarship process.
Attorney-at-Law, Steven Daniels, is currently working with the GSSBA to complete the business registration process. Christian said the association would like to encourage sponsors to come on board and share the vision for the development of sport in high schools.
A team of basketball oriented individuals and entrepreneurs including the overseas-based Guyana Basketball Veterans Association, Paul and Patrick Haynes’ Twinkillas.com, among many others will advise the GSSBA.
The GSSBA would also like to encourage individuals to volunteer as coaches, players, team managers, scorekeepers, referees and cheerleaders. Small stipends will be allocated to volunteers.
Interested parties in any of these areas should email the GSSBA at info@gssba.net, leaving their name, contact information and area of interest.
The GSSBA office at 231 Camp Street will officially open on April 1 and will be staffed from 9 am-4 pm.
Volunteers are encouraged to pick up application forms and learn more about the GSSBA on www.gssba.net.
