Basketball-Instructor Wright hopes to set up “real youth development project” |11 October 2006

Fédération internationale de basket-ball association (Fiba) coaching instructor Sterling Wright said this when speaking to Sports Nation recently.

Last year, after seeing the best teams and the ones who are not quite as good in action, instructor Wright noted that “the level of basketball played here is very good compared to the region. But I do believe that the coaches need to fine-tune a lot of things for the game to go a level higher internationally.”

Since his arrival, he has been going round the country to look at the facilities available and last week he met with members of the Seychelles Basketball Federation (SBF) executive committee to work on an elaborated plan as to how to better develop the sport of basketball here.

Wright’s mission here is being sponsored by the Olympic Solidarity through the Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc).

“I’m here to examine how to better utilize basketball in scholastic activities. I know that the federation and club teams have limited finance and we have to come up with ingenious ideas to look for help,” he said.

Instructor Wright added that he hopes to set up a project that will hold ground, just like the one he started in Barbados last year and which is running well.

“Organising youth camps during holidays could be a good idea as it will help with talent identification. A lot of kids here learn to play basketball on their own and they lack the fundamentals. The federation has an ambitious project with the cadet female players and junior male players. This is a long term plan but the only problem is that the players train a lot and don’t get to play a lot against foreign opponents. I believe the best way to do so is to invite teams to play here,” noted Wright, who is also helping with the training of the country’s men’s and women’s national teams.

It is to note that Wright was expected to spend six months here, but the former head coach of the senior men's national team of Morocco at the 2003 African Championship and technical director of the Morocco Federation, has decided to stay until December and then return in July 2007 to help with the final preparation of the country’s teams for the Seventh Indian Ocean Islands Games (IOIG) in Madagascar.

During his first visit here, instructor Wright pointed out three areas in the local game where there should be improvements. Those were tactics at the end of the game, also called ‘controlling the score and time’; the psychological aspect of the game – that is the coaches’ role in bringing stability to players; and teams having to work on a plan for a year.

He also noted that Seychelles can compete in the African Championship won eight times by Angola.

G. G.