The importance of youth basketball
"ready" by threecee, via flickr
I know you know how important youth basketball is since you’ve grown up playing the game. But even someone who doesn’t play can work it out if they have half a brain.
By youth, I am referring both to the real youngsters who struggle to get the ball up into a regulation hoop, as well as teenagers who play the game on full-size courts.
The fact is that without a strong youth development programme, the sport has no hope of a bright future.
International youth development
Internationally, this is rightly given the highest priority. While FIBA celebrates basketball at its highest level in the Olympics and the World Championships, they do not neglect the younger players but instead create huge tournaments for to provide as many growth and development opportunities as are possible. Some examples:
- FIBA u/17 World Championship for Men 2010 (2 – 11 July 2010, Germany)
- FIBA u/17 World Championship for Women 2010 (16 – 25 July 2010, France)
- FIBA u/19 World Championships for Men, Women (June, July 2011)
- FIBA u/16 and u/18 Continential Championships (2011)
You can see how much they have planned on the FIBA event schedule.
FIBA has now even gone as far as to push for basketball to be included at the Youth Olympic Games, with a specially designed game format too.
It’s clear that they are taking this very, very seriously.
Note: Besides the youth focus, it’s interesting to see how FIBA recognise and celebrate women’s basketball specifically – in addition to those above, they will also be hosting the FIBA World Championships for Women this year (in the Czech Republic) to complement the Men’s Championships being held.
South Africa’s youth development
"Basketball" by dorothy.voorhees, via flickr
It’s with this in mind that we can consider the question a lot of us here are asking – what development is really taking place in South Africa?
We recently had the bad news about our own local u/18 IPT (Inter Provincial Tournament) being cancelled, with the u/17 championships also having been cancelled (although thankfully there has been better news regarding the u/16’s, at least in certain provinces if not for the whole country).
This combined with the silence surrounding the team selection process for the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August this year (which South Africa is a confirmed participant, according to FIBA) is very unsettling.
Our own BSA has done little to shed any light on the current situation. We can only hope that they will soon start delivering on the strategic objectives they tabled in 2008, which included the development of mini basketball and youth programs, as well as the delivery of a proposal on national team programs.
It’s wisely said that “without vision, the people perish”. This might sound extreme, but could still certainly be applied to the development of basketball, where the youth need to see some sort of vision to believe in and work towards in order to progress the game.
For the sake of our basketball future, we need to be able to answer two simple questions:
- what is the vision for basketball in South Africa? and
- how will it be executed in order to encourage development?
BSA should play a key role, but we have a responsibility as well to ensure that the course is the best one possible.
We know it has to happen for us to move forward.
What do you think is the best way for us to do so?
Hey V
Can we know the authors of articles.Its nice to know who writes what rather than having nameless people.Unless we want to classify reports as anonymous.LOL.Interesting points raised.
Hi Kim, we do usually post the article authors – it's important to give credit where credit is due, that's why we also generally don't like to post anonymous articles. Where the article is written by someone other than who posted it here, we will say so. Hope this helps.
Hi Kim, we do usually post the article authors – it's important to give credit where credit is due, that's why we also generally don't like to post anonymous articles. Where the article is written by someone other than who posted it here, we will say so. Hope this helps.