St Josephs College in Samoa are actively introducing basketball into the schools curriculum. But to improve their knowledge of the game, six students and the schools principal have spent the past 4 days undertaking the FIBA Oceania level 0 coaches and referees course.

The first half of the course looked at the refereeing aspect of the game. It covered such things as rule knowledge, game administration, positioning and signals. As part of this, video footage from a New Zealand National League Game was used to help the participants better understand some of the key concepts being discussed.

The second half of the course covered the coaching aspect of the game. Again we looked at rule knowledge but most of the course focussed on specific skills and how to best practice / teach these. A session on treating sports injuries and warm ups was also completed in which all participants were asked to correctly strap their ankles, review the RICE principle and develop an appropriate warm-up schedule for a basketball team. 

A big congratulations to the following people who all passed both the level 0 coaching and referees courses- Ulimasao Fata, Norman Solofa, Alex Mikaele, Yutaka Lipano, Eddie Fereti, Montini Toma and Dr Stephen Filipo.

With their further developed understanding of the game, the students have been asked to organise and run an intra-school basketball competition between the school houses for all interested students. This will no doubt be a challenge for the boys, but there is no doubt they are more than capable. I wish them all the best.

Congratulations again to the sucessful participants and all the best with your basketball