Keiv Chestney
President of the Guyana Secondary Schools Basket-ball Association (GSSBA) Leon Christian has disclosed plans to further elevate the standard of secondary school basketball, by making a few key improvements to his association in its second year of operation.
Christian told Stabroek Sport that although the GSSBA had had considerable success in re-invigorating and developing secondary school basketball locally, they would stop at nothing to correct all the shortcomings of the organization as well as implement more structures to ensure that the organization fulfils its objectives.
“After assessing the progress of the GSSBA in its inaugural season, we have made a note of all of the areas that we have had a dramatic impact on and we intend to capitalize on them come next season. However we have also admonished our shortcomings and begun work during this off-season to rectify these issues,” he said.
According to Christian, one of the areas that they would be working on this off-season is implementing a fully-functional coaching structure in every school that had indicated its intention to participate in the 2008-2009 season.
Christian also said that he had seen the need to introduce more programmes to strengthen the fundamentals of the players based on observations made by coaches in the last season.
With that in mind, the GSSBA president said that his association had planned to kick-off some of their activities during the August holiday in order to have sufficient time to run basketball clinics for players and coaches aimed at addressing these concerns.
“This summer we have a series of projects planned which will impact several key parts of our organization. First we have planned a one-week clinic for the players, and this will be an all-inclusive clinic, working with the elite players of the league who we feel have the skills to make the jump to the next level.
“We will run a series of drills to focus primarily on the fundamentals of the game as well as some educational workshops so that we cannot only develop the skills of the players but help them intellectually,” he said.
Christian said that some of the areas they plan to focus on are public speaking, sportsmanship, player conduct and other areas that should be developed by local athletes.
He also mentioned that there will be programmes held for coaches and statisticians during the August holiday in preparation for an early start in season two of the GSSBA league which will be extended to a nationwide competition.
According to a press release, the GSSBA plans to include schools from the East Bank of Demerara, the West Bank of Demerara as well as more schools from the East Coast of Demerara and Georgetown.
The release also stated that the GSSBA, with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture,Youth and Sport will be donating eight Huffy portable basketball backboards to a few chosen schools.
Those schools are Queen’s College, North Georgetown Secondary, Charlestown Secondary, New Campbellville Secondary, North Ruimveldt Secondary and West Demerara Secondary.
After the first season, the GSSBA had rewarded the top players in each statistical category.
Those players were: Michael Thompson of Tutorial High School (most rebounds), Yannick Dundas of Bishops’ High School (most steals), Bevon Spooner of Cummings Lodge Secondary (most assists), and Kadeem Jacobs of St Rose’s High School (most blocks) from the Georgetown conference.
From the Linden Conference the top players were: Horace Gurrick of Linden Technical Institute (most blocks), Akeem Kanhai of Mackenzie High School (most steals) and Michael Turner of New Silver City Secondary (most rebounds and most assists).
The GSSBA also mentioned that it had not yet named the best scholar-athlete as it is still in the process of accumulating academic reports of players from schools. The commissioner of the GSSBA Denis Clarke said that the association had earmarked close to ten players from the inaugural season who in his opinion have the skills to attain basketball scholarships. Clarke also mentioned that the association was awaiting the grades of these candidates to confirm that they were indeed eligible.
The GSSBA would also like to extend their gratitude to the following organizations and persons who have contributed to the success of their inaugural season. Those are: the Haynes Brothers Foundation, Ansa Mc al Ltd, Courts Guyana Inc, Colours, Xxtreme Support Services, Swansea Industrial Associates, the Guyana Women’s Basketball Association, along with coaches Mark Agard, Julian Haynes, Robert Cadogan and Coordinator of the Linden conference Adullah ‘Zico’ Hamid.
