BTA establishes coaches' commission
The Botswana Tennis Association ( BTA) will launch its Coaches’ Commission next month. The association will induct professional and competent BTA registered coaches into the commission.
The coaches who will be allowed into the commission will have to pass the relevant official B. T. A examinations or tests of merit to be addressed as ‘ professional’ and ‘ competent.’
BTA President Oaitse Thipe says the objective of the Coaches commission includes coaching education, making sure annually there are coaches courses, refresher courses and to protect the interest of coaches and advise BTA on Technical matters.
“We hope that in the next few years , we can have a Technical Director responsible for coaching the coaches, which should be a very big step for us and the Coaches commission,” Thipe told BG Sport in an interview this week.
“We currently have a post in our Executive committee of Director of coaches but we also need one who is an employee of BTA, we are very much interested in filling up that vacancy very soon.”
In addition, he says having a coaches’ commission will move the association to Bronze level in terms of recognition by International Tennis Federation. “This means growth on our side and the recognition we get will drive us through and influence us to strive for more.”
Through the Commission, Thipe says they have drafted the constitution, which needs to be adopted by coaches. “We are now educating coaches about importance of structures of coaching. It’s difficult to work with coaches because if you go around schools there are so many people claiming to be tennis coaches with no credentials , this lowers the standard of tennis locally.”
Further he says they have been going around the country and in schools to educate many teachers who are not qualified, “next year we are planning on hosting an ITF level 2 Coaches course so that we can up skill a number of coaches.” This weekend BTA will be conducting a Play Tennis course for coaches at Universities and Colleges in Botswana; the course will run from Friday 6 November until Monday 9 November 2020.
The Tutors for the course include Petrus Molefhe and Aobakwe Lekang. The course will be hosted at the National Tennis Center. About 20 coaches will be attending this course from Maun, Francistown, Jwaneng and many other places.