Kaduna Hosts Youth Alive Community Basketball Programme
…116 Kids, 31 Officials in Attendance
Zainab Tanimu
Kaduna, North-West, NIGERIA
The much celebrated Lagos Youth Alive Community basketball programme has added one more region to its growing community of elite developmental coaching curriculum and underage leagues in Nigeria, as it hosted her first ever workshop and other activities in the Northern hemisphere.
As part of the programme spearheaded by Former D’Tigers star and Technical Director of the Lagos State Basketball Association Gbade Olatona and legendary Nigerian National Basketball coach Ganiyu Otenigbagbe the first Youth Alive coaches seminar tagged “Train the Trainer” took place on Tuesday at the Murtala Muhammed Square Sports Complex.
The 3 and half hour programme had legendary developmental coach and former Junior D’Tigers Gaffer Adeka Daudu as the lead facilitator and experienced basketball developmental camp coordinator, and Head coach FCT Angels, Emmanuel Odah take on the rules and values of Mini and Cadet basketball coaching with practical classes and solutions for coaching kids at underaged level.
In its 10th year, the Youth Alive developmental programme has grown from a community development programme situated in Lagos to being tagged as the best Youth and development sports league in South Western Nigeria and now a step closer to becoming a national pride.
Present at the clinic was Vice President of the Nigeria Coaches Association, Kaduna State indigene , Coach Sani Turi, Coach Alidu Muhammad , Coach Gambo Danjuma of the Nigeria Defence Academy and other coaches from neighbouring towns including Zaria, Jigawa, Abuja, Lagos amongst other developmental coaches resident in Kaduna.
Adeka Daudu emphasised on making training fun and in sequential order; application of coaching psychology to keep kids learning the right way. He appealed to coaches to desist from aggressive competitive and repetitive learning but correctional creative style of coaching to get the kids to fulfill their potential. Coach Adeka also laid emphasis on continuous engagement of athletes throughout the training period even when equipments are inadequate.
On the other hand, coach Emmanuel Odah enjoined the coaches to understand the work of building the right and proper foundation for young athletes and see themselves as influencers beyond just the court but the life of the kids in totality.
The workshop marked the tip off of the 5 day Youth Alive Global initiative program supported by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited and the Nigeria Basketball Federation.
To complete the proceedings of the opening day, a Basketball camp comprising of 116 kids took place at the Murtala Muhammed Square basketball court after the coaching workshop as the practical test of the newly acquired knowledge. Day 2 will have comprise of Eight Under 14 teams from 5 Academies resident in Kaduna and 3 visiting Academies from Lagos, Jigawa and FCT Abuja competing in a friendly but competitive atmosphere till Friday when the curtain closes on the first Kaduna Youth Community League, with a community outreach to less privileged kids. A Back to School mentoring session also took place at the Kaduna Township Stadium on Wednesday.
