Growing the game

What I appreciated about the referees of the August tournament was that right after the match, they had a meeting to discuss what had transpired and misjudgment that night. There was accountability: they acknowledged that something possibly went wrong and they did something about it. One of to discuss the incident and I couldn’t be happier that he chose to do so instead of the usual Filipino way of merely apologizing— with matching head scratch no less.

I believe these costly events are ways of telling us that in addition to developing our national athletes, our NSAs, leagues, and other stakeholders should also be aggressively educating rules of the game. As in math, it’s a positive correlation: when the level of competition goes up, the level of statisticians included) should also rise. If we’re serious about sports development, I believe this is one aspect that we shouldn’t neglect.

In the end, there is no room for mediocrity; we should always aim for excellence. We can choose to prevent instances such as these, where matches end at the expense of the hard working teams, by facing it head on.

I was pleased to find out that last month, the LVPI spearheaded an FIVB coaching seminar to touch base with current and aspiring mentors of the sport. These seeds will eventually sprout in time, timely with the rebuilding of our national teams in preparation for the Southeast Asian Games that the Philippines will host next year.