Go Team Belize

Over the past few weeks, a sports frenzy has taken over the country. First it was the NBA finals and now it is the king of all sporting events, football’s World Cup.

In the midst of all this hype, however, a sporting controversy is brewing over Belizean basketball and that is the appointment of Coach Marques Johnson as Head Coach for the Belize National Basketball Team (Team Belize).  There has also been a lot of talk about the donation of over $100,000 to send team Belize to play at CentroBasket in the Dominican Republic.

For the past nine years Mr. Kevin Siroki has been coaching Team Belize and our team has been doing quite well internationally. Under his leadership, we have won gold in 2001, silver in 2006, gold in 2008 and silver in COCABA in Cancun in 2009. Everyone will tell you that Siroki has earned the respect and loyalty of many of his players.

While no one questions Mr. Johnson’s talent as a basketball player, some are concerned about his lack of coaching experience as well as the timing of this appointment, since we are so close to the competition in the DR.     Anyone who know about team sports will tell you that good coaches take time to build good teams.

So for many of us who love basketball, the million dollar question is will Coach Johnson have the time to build a relationship with his players and put together a team that can bring back gold?

A few years ago, the national team was comprised of six foreign based Belizeans and six local Belizeans. Today we have ten foreign based Belizean players and only two local Belizean players and this is of concern to many Belizeans who are asking:  Where are our local players? Why is it that we are not producing good enough players here at home? Where are the guys like Pulu Lightburn and Duck Garnett who went away, developed their skills and returned home to share their talents?

Every Belizean citizen will agree that sports are an important part of national pride. More directly, sports build discipline among athletes, are an excellent part of healthy living and provide recreation for everyone.  Many life skills are learnt through sporting activities, skills like team work, cooperation, a spirit of excellence and the ability to manage victories as well as defeats.

Regrettably, as important as sports are to our nation, we have not been treating them as a priority.  I know of no politician who gets excited about the thought of being made Minister of Sports.  The truth is however, that sports is a lucrative industry all round.  It creates employment not only for semi professional athletes but for food vendors, entertainers, security personnel and many others.  It provides jobs and it provides clean entertainment.

Belizeans on a whole are talented; we have plenty of space and lots of sunshine to develop our athletic skills and talents.  We have many friends who would be more than willing to assist us with the technical knowledge to make us competitive in many sporting discipline.

It is the role of government then to take a hard look at where we can excel, develop a plan in cooperation with the stakeholders for athletics and put forward the blueprint for achieving success.

We need to start in our primary schools, teaching our children the fundamentals of a various sports, developing their skills from an early age and helping them appreciate gamesmanship.

We also need to develop regular summer sports program such as the one developed by Cordel Hyde when he was Minister of Sports. This program catered for over 1,000 kids for the entire summer in Belize City alone.  Here is where we start to harvest talent and recognize the best of the best.

Next comes the secondary schools programmes, where the development continues and then onward towards greater mastery of a sport.

This is how we will develop our home grown talent and this is how in the end we will make any “Team Belize” a true reflection of ourselves.  It has to begin with the political will to make it happen.

In the meantime, we must lend support to anyone who wears the Belize jersey for they represent our national pride.  Go Team Belize!

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