Fifty-eight persons in the region have so far been certified since the Caribbean Officiating Programme for Squash (COPS) was introduced in 2005, President of the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Craig Archer says. Archer, in a recent interview, noted that although persons in the region had been refereeing for years, very few of them had the opportunity to be certified and assessed in a formal way.
“There are many persons throughout the region who have been refereeing at the Caribbean Squash Championships for almost twenty years, but very few have had the opportunity to be certified and assessed in a formal way. CASA recognized this and with technical assistance from Squash Canada, created the Caribbean Officiating Programme for Squash (COPS) in 2005,” he said. Since then there have been five certification courses conducted in three Caribbean islands over the past five years. A total of 58 persons from seven Caribbean nations have now been certified across the CASA region with eleven of those being currently certified at the B-level. “Another certification programme is scheduled to be held this year in St. Vincent at the annual CASA Squash Championships in August and they are confident that a few of the officials at that event will qualify as A-level referees. Hopefully this will enable the COPS programme to be self-sustaining into the future,” Archer stated. Currently Archer, Karen Anderson, Alwyn Callender and Orson Simpson are the four referees now officiating at the 2010 Cayman Squash Open, a US$55,300 Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA) event being played on the island of Grand Cayman. The same referees officiated in the Cayman Squash Open last year and are considered to be among the best in the region, Archer disclosed. All have been trained by COPS. Archer said further, “I am, of course, extremely proud that the Tournament Referee here, Karen Anderson from Jamaica, who is a former Caribbean Ladies Champion, and a graduate of the COPS programme has been recognized internationally and will be one of the referees who will officiate at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India in October. She has already had experience refereeing at the 2006 Women’s World Team Championships in Edmonton, Canada.” “All four of us here have, in fact, come through COPS. Both Orson and I are from Barbados and he officiated at the 2007 Men’s World Team Championships in Chennai, India. Alwyn is originally from Guyana, but now lives in New York, and refereed on several occasions at the Tournament of Champions in that city,” he said
“The tournament organizers have done an amazing job here in Cayman with this event. Last year was great, but this year with the glass court and everything else is even better. Dan Kneipp must be warmly congratulated for having the vision and confidence in indigenous Caribbean referees to have invited us here last year. We must have done a decent job then, because he asked us to come back again this year,”Archer opined.
