Basketball boss Gordon eyes successful second term in office
HEADING INTO his second term as president of the Jamaica Basketball Association after being re-elected unopposed at the recent elections, Paulton Gordon says he is hopeful that his new team can help to grow the sport locally.
“We’re grateful with the confidence they’ve placed in us. It isn’t the same team; we have a nice mix of established and new faces so we’re hoping that we can move the sport forward with this new team,” he stated.
The veteran basketball administrator explained that conversations between his team and governing body, the InterSecondary Schools Association (ISSA) will continue to help with the growth of basketball at the high school level. He added that the format and length of the league have already been changed and this augurs well for the future of the sport in Jamaica.
“The dialogue with the governing body ISSA continues and we’ve seen some positives steps over the last couple of years as it relates to how high school basketball is positioned. They’ve already extended the league by a month and a half, as in previous years it was a truncated season that lasted from October to December and didn’t give the kids enough time to really express themselves.
“The format has also changed as now you see an urban, rural then an all-island competition and the players are actually loving it. So, we encourage and facilitate and meet with ISSA on how we can advance school level basketball going forward,” Gordon explained.
Among the new initiatives that the team is hoping to achieve includes getting more local coaches certified under the new World Association of Basketball Coaches ( WABC) guidelines. Gordon shared that the team has already identified the coaches that are set to engage in the training programme in the USA in short order.
“We wanted to broaden the pool of officials that are certified at the international level. We have two FIBA (International Basketball Federation) referees and we would love to expand that. We would also like to extend the continuous training of our coaches under the WABC certification and we have already nominated a number of coaches to attend training in the USA,” he added.
As for the country’s main competition, the National Basketball League (NBL), Gordon is hopeful that going forward, the participating teams will grow from strength to strength.
“Last season we took it to another level in terms of the awareness and we want to build on that. We have some solid partners that are looking to come on board and we love for them to get value for their money. The competitiveness is dependent on how quickly the teams rebound from the pandemic as some teams were inactive for the two years, and now that the NBL is back, we’re hoping that they’re planning and preparing in a proper way, both administratively and management of talent,” Gordon added.