The American Samoa Basketball Association is pleased to announce the acceptance of high school & national coach, Diehl Langkilde, into the Oceania Sporting Education program. The program will be held in Apia, Samoa from September 23 to October 4, 2013.

Langkilde will attending the Community Educators Training that is sponsored by the Oceania National Olympic Committee (ONOC) in association with the Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC). The course is a two week program where coaches or administrators from different islands & federations will participate in the course.

The OSEP Community Educators course is expected to develop in-country community educators with high quality presentation and assessment skills who can deliver and assess

the Sport in Communities Administrator (SiC) and Community Coach & Official (CC&O)

courses. The goal is to have quality sport clubs and competitions within the sport

community.

When asked about this opportunity, Langkilde commented, "This is another great opportunity to help further the sporting community with structural competitions & development of clubs in each federations. It’s also another great opportunity for me to further my knowledge already received from previous programs that is already being utilized in American Samoa to further develop our sporting communities. I am very humbled to be participating in this community educator course."

Langkilde was also selected in 2011 for the International Coaching Education Certification Program (ICECP), where he attended class sessions in developing his project, The Development of Grassroots Basketball in American Samoa: Empowering Coaches. This coaching curriculum focuses on level 0 coaching and how to develop young athletes and coaches. The program also empowers coaches to train other coaches and to create a domino effect in having more coaches develop other coaches. The ICECP is a joint effort between the USOC and the University of Delaware that is headed by Dr. Mathew Robinson.

Milton Taufa'asau, President of the American Samoa Basketball Association, stated that he is proud of Diehl's application to OSEP and acceptance and looks forward to implementing his work not only into basketball, but for all federations that will benefit from this. He also mentions that if anyone is interested in applying for coaching education programs, sporting curriculum studies, etc., that are welcome to come and speak with the President of ASNOC, Victor Langkilde, or the Secretary General, Erika Radewagen at 699-8855. Diehl will depart the territory on September 21st and return home on October 4th. He will also be conducting courses for coaches & administrators in October & November.

Langkilde coaches nationally for American Samoa and five years at Fa'asao Marist High School. He was also elected earlier in 2013 to be Secretary-Treasurer for the American Samoa Basketball Association.