More courses, more coaches, less coaching

Almost every Monday morning literally, there is a sports course coming our way.

These courses, in the main, target coaches, but there is the spattering of events geared at administrators and other personnel.{{more}}

With near proportionate regularity, over the years, the disciplines of track and field and football have been the beneficiaries of these courses.

In recent times, swimming, volleyball, table tennis, cycling and to a lesser extent basketball, have all had their portion of courses.

The parent bodies, as well as the local associations, mean well.

The courses are designed to up the technical abilities all round; the courses are sourced, the facilitator(s) is/are identified and the dissemination of the information takes place and the participants are certified.

Additionally, St Vincent and the Grenadines benefits, as hotel accommodation is mandatory, as are a rented vehicle, a course venue, catering and other facilities.

But what happens thereafter continues to be the bugbear.

The rhetorical promises turn out to be grandiose, as the colourful expressions of going back to the various communities and imparting the knowledge gained from the course goes with the wind, as the participants receive their certificates.

Football and track and field are the disciplines which can boast of having trained personnel to adequately fit every community across St Vincent and the Grenadines, and with others to spare.

Despite the abundance of certified and qualified persons in almost all the sporting disciplines, there is still the hue and cry of a shortage of the willing and able ones to carry the sports forward in a progressive manner.

The bellowing gets louder as in the case of the same two disciplines identified; it is the same pool of personnel that show up at the community level and the same faces who are rotated for national coaching assignments.

Seemingly, the situation is perpetuated without any serious signs of change.

The happenings are compounded by the fact that the courses are there for the taking and the national associations are obligated to request them, thus stretching longer the agonising dilemma.

But to be fair to the many participants of these courses, many are mandated to attend because of the positions they hold at their workplaces and in many instances, they have no genuine interest in the sport on offer.

Moreover, most of the courses are buffeted by the presence of many active sportsmen and women, who then are caught in a quandary, as they are called upon to participate in processes for which they are not prepared.

The counter argument is that the knowledge gained will help in the development of their game and give them a better feel of what coaching and the dissemination of instruction entails.

But it is widely accepted that not every active player of a sport has interest in becoming a coach, as they are pre-occupied with the present and are prepared to let the future take care of itself.

Also, the national associations are bound by the numbers; hence, persons simply attend the courses as fill ins and to make up the required quota to give credence to the course.

This was the case a few months ago, when the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation hosted a D Licence coaching course.

It was clear then, that some of the participants did not have the prerequisite for courses of that nature.

This quite readily explains why there were 31 of the 42 being successful.

Whilst these issues exist with other regional territories, we have to fix ours for ourselves.

In so doing, it may be a need for the respective national sporting bodies to have their prospective coaches do in-house training and be screened before venturing out on the courses, especially those which possess certification of ability.

Likewise, it should be stipulated that an accepted pass mark must be attained before one can be deemed a certified coach.

This will give a true indication of the qualified coaching stock that St Vincent and the Grenadines has and not necessarily the number of certified ones.

Indeed, the current conditions, as they relate to courses and coaches and finding equity with the output in performances at the national, regional and international levels, show up an alarming disparity.

Something must give sometime; but for now, that is just the way it is.