01/11/2017
Oceania
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FIBA up-skilling Australia and New Zealand Referee Instructors

GOLD COAST - FIBA Head of Refereeing, Carl Jungebrand, FIBA Oceania Referee Manager, Albert Joseph, Simon Kirkland and Tomas Rimkus recently hosted the FIBA Referee Instructors Program (FRIP) on the Gold Coast, Australia.

The intention of this program was to upskill Australian and New Zealand's referee instructors to further develop their work within their National Federations. The program focuses on creating high-quality referee education at the regional, national and international level by outlining a framework for high-quality referee development.

Participants outlining their theoretical training session

15 referee instructors from Australia and New Zealand attended the program. FIBA.basketball was able to sit down with former FIBA referees Ken Coulson (NZL) and Bill Mildenhall (AUS).

What is one of the big takeaways you have from this program?

A big part of this course is upskilling us as facilitators, there has been a lot of focus on facilitating training sessions and I think they have given us a hell of a lot of ideas, resources, and techniques we should be using which will be really good," said Mildenhall. "Hopefully, this will permeate through to our next level of facilitators and referees."

"This program is reinforcing things we’re doing well but then expanding our knowledge of what we can do better," added Coulson. "With our group being predominately an older generation, it is helping us look at learning in a different way. With the new digital world, it is important to adapt with the times."

After this program, what do you believe needs to be implemented in your country?

"There are three parts to this program, the facilitator section, basketball knowledge and then the referee knowledge," said Mildenhall. "The basketball knowledge section is fantastic, it assists us to identify what coaches and players are trying to achieve so that we can take this into our officiating. This is something that I believe we need to focus more on when educating our referees."

"The more awareness that we have of what players and coaches are trying to achieve then we are better off as referees. Even if it just means that we have similar terminology then if you're communicating with a coach or player and are able to use the relevant terminology then you gain a lot more credibility."

Do you see this training as an integral part of seeing more Australia and New Zealand referees on the world stage?

"Definitely, historically referees in Australia have competed well on the world stage," said Coulson. "It is a challenge to New Zealand to buy into this program that FIBA has invested in to make sure that we are competing at the world level."

The program combined theoretical learning with a progression to on-court implementation of training sessions giving the participants an opportunity to develop in all aspects of a referee instructors role. 

Participants running through a referee training session

Participants will now go back to their Federations and continue their work on developing high-quality referees and referee instructors within their country.

FIBA