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| Sports Minister Patrick Simmons |
ST GEORGE’S, June 24, 2012 - The Grenada Government is considering a programme to develop and harness the talents of young athletes at home.
The Cabinet this week gave permission to Youth Empowerment and Sports Minister Patrick Simmons to engage the St George’s University (SGU) to develop a home-grown academic programme for athletes, especially those who are completing Secondary Schools.
“It’s embryonic and will have inputs from key stakeholders including SGU and some national federations,” the Minister said.
The intervention by government is in light of the limited availability of sports scholarships especially in the United States.
“The possibilities for scholarships at Junior Colleges in the United States are becoming fewer and starting later this year stricter roster limits the chances of athletes,” Simmons said.
The Minister is referring to a decision taken by the Board of Directors of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) to hold the number of non-U.S. players at no more than one-fourth of a team’s allotment of scholarship players. It means that potential scholarship seekers from Grenada particularly in basketball, football and track would be affected when the new measure takes effect in August.
The proposed programme has been welcomed by two of Grenada’s leading coaches. Former two-time world indoor 400m champion Alleyne Francique and current national track and field coach Albert Joseph have endorsed the plan to develop a home-grown programme.
Both Francique and Joseph, who were in Trinidad this weekend to see the Grenadian athletes at the Trinidad and Tobago National Championships, believe that the programme will ensure that the many talented athletes could benefit from a tertiary education as well as training from the island’s experienced coaches.
“This is welcomed news and I hope that the plan is acted upon immediately,” said Francique, who was at the Hasely Crawford Stadium to see three of his athletes from Texas A&M University including Grenada’s Kanika Beckles.
“All that is needed now is a high performance training centre which could include a six-lane track and we are good to go. There are qualified coaches on the island,” he said.
“We have personnel with the technical knowledge to produce world class athletes,” said Joseph, who will be team coach for Grenada’s track and field athletes at the Olympic Games in London.
“The islands with their home-grown programmes tend to do much better in international competitions,” he said in making reference to St Kitts and Nevis.
Suriname recently launched its Regional Sports Academy and National Olympic Committees of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States have agreed to an OECS Olympic Sports Academy.
“Through our joint efforts, before long, we may add a new hero to the list of Caribbean top athletes trained and polished in our own Regional Sports Academy,” said Desire Bouterse, President of Suriname about the state-of-the-art facility to provide further training in the area of Sport for Development, as well as elite athlete development.
3 comments:
we should not be looking at the junior college route. The academic curriculum must include SAT prep and not cxc. Because thats the key admission requirement to US colleges. The inclusion of the foreign athlete at the Junior college level will be eliminated over the next few years.Lets start preparing our student athletes for Division one now.
However, if you research you will also see that this is a similar position expressed by the NCAA and in some instances already in effect with some sporting disciplines. Not much difference, the fact is that Grenada has to develop its own home-grown programme as other countries have done or embarking on.
For Many Years Grenada have produce many great Athletes in different sporting fields with out good training Facilities this will be a move forward for Grenada to event produce event better Athletes I will support this venture 100% and Help Create and International Orginization to assist in providing funding for Grenada Athletes
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