GUATEMALA CITY (Guatemala)– The Guatemala National Basketball Federation (FNBG, for its Spanish acronym) celebrated several workshops in an effort to develop their nation’s coaches. In the year's first semester, the Federation certified the Level 1 basketball coaches, a great success in its first phase.

Sixty-six coaches participated in the Federation’s initiative during the month of April at Teodoro Palacio Flores National Gymnasium in Guatemala City, in their search to pass the first, in-person phase toward the Level 1 coaching certification. After this phase, those who succeed will go on to the following requirement of a 100 hours of supervised practice. Finally, the third phase will be an evaluation during the October and November months to gain the title of Level 1 basketball coaches of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

The talks were in charge of Adonis Navarro, from Cuba, and who’s head coach of the national women’s teams; as well as Omar Morales, manager of the FNBG’s Technical Department.

Also present were Cristian Riquiac, member of the Guatemala National Referee Commission, and Jason Pennant, trainer of the national teams. These efforts were coordinated by Dennys Ordóñez, of the FNBG.

“This is part of the Federation’s project to be immersed in preparing and updating the nation's coaches for them to be successful. We’ll make the evaluation according to the categories. I worked in the planning for the sports training and methodology to teach the attack fundamentals and the exercises for these fundamentals,” said national coach Adonis Navarro to FIBA.basketball.

“The objective of the Federation is to categorize and categorize each one of the coaches in our nation. Based on their needs, we have identified a constant development system from their line of work and, starting in August we will go to each department and continue to identify their needs. We would identify who can assume tasks with us in the national teams,” added the coach that achieved the gold medal in the most recent edition of the Central American Championship with the women's U-16 national team and the gold medal in the most recent Central American games in Managua with the senior national team.

To obtain the coaching title, they must complete a 100% of these 20 hours, then go to their work and effect 100 hours of supervised practice (training units) and will later be evaluated in October and November.

Omar Morales, manager of the FNBG’s Technical Department, oversaw the teaching methods of the defensive aspects and their exercises.

“What we want to do is certify the coaches in the four basketball specialty levels that are parallel to the four levels of the Sports Sciences offered by our Referee Confederation, so that they can get the FIBA Level 1 and then, consecutively, can achieve the FIBA license to coach. We're doing the work in trying to prepare coaches in Guatemala so that our nation's basketball can elevate its level,” said Morales to FIBA.basketball.

“In Guatemala we've divided the coaching workshops in 3 segments. The first is for those that are signed by the Federation. We have around 25 coaches that receive a monthly salary and work in one of the 22 basketball schools that we have in each one of our departments. They head the fourth basketball line in Guatemala. The second group is made of those that coach in our National League tournaments, that include formative categories throughout U-23, Maxi Basketball, second and first division... This group of 210 coaches received their annual training that allows them to head a team. The third and last group that are the coaches that want to obtain the basketball coaching title want to study Sports Sciences and specialize in basketball. And to this last group this year we’ll give the first three levels,” added FNBG's Technical Department manager.

The Federation had initiated the year in the month of March with a Coaching Accreditation Course were 203 professionals attended to be able to direct in the competitive spheres of the FNBG's National League this year. Under the motto “Learn how our athletes learn to teach better” began the 2019 round of training.

Coaches are the teachers of basketball around the world, they form lives, they work to develop the players’ characters, they teach principles and values — and these are the reasons why for FNBG believes their preparation is paramount.

FIBA