Volleyball in the grassroots

If plans won’t meet a hitch, an ace is being served for Cebu volleyball as a program designed to promote the sport in the different towns around the province is being prepared.

There wasn’t anything as complicated as rocket science employed by the officers of the Cebu Volleyball Association (CEVA) led by Glenn Anthony Soco and Jun San Juan for this project.

Employing commonsense, the CEVA is pushing for the development of the sport by going back to the basics.

While the staging of tournaments promote sports development, the enhancement of the skills of the coaches, game officials and players must not be set aside.

To start off the program, CEVA is pushing a training program for coaches that would arm them with the necessary skills and strategies to fully develop the potential of their players as individuals and as members of a team.

While your ability to play the sport or simply understanding it, if not your job like the Physical Education teachers in schools, would make you a coach, there are many things you need to learn to really make things work out.

We can never say we have a real grassroots development program unless we develop several qualified coaches and get them to handle the training of the athletes even in the remotest of areas.

After developing a pool of coaches, the CEVA also hopes to develop a bigger pool of licensed referees to officiate the games.

Poor officiating kills the spirit of the sport, so let us also make sure that there are really qualified people to officiate games.

More than accrediting more referees, this will also eventually reduce the cost of the competition organizers, who need not go too far to get people to run the competitions.  Also, this will be an opportunity for those who will qualify for a license to earn extra income by being involved in a game they love.

There must of course be no wanton licensing.  Only those who will pass the stringent qualifying examinations must be issued the license to preserve the integrity of the game.

Now that you have qualified coaches and qualified officials, you can start developing the skills of the players from all levels.  Why all levels?  That is because you need a continuous program.

As the present crop of players start feeling too old to rough it up in the court, they can become the next set of coaches and game officials.

This is something that the volleyball community and those, who would soon become part of it, can look forward to in the near future.

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MILESTONE: One of the guys who pushed me to pick-up the game of golf more than 12 years ago is turning a year older tomorrow.  When I would meet all sorts of trouble at the golf course, I often ask myself if he is a friend or somebody just wanting to make me miserable…hehehe.

Happy birthday to my buddy Roger E. Guarin, whose influence to make me pick up a golf club helped brought many happy moments on and off the course.  Now, I’m the one pushing him to take up the game again.  More power!

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ANNOUNCEMENTS: I have been asked by friends to publish these announcements and I hope the readers can help reach out to their classmates.

Tito Mark Aliño asked me to announce that Abellana National School class 1974 would have their annual reunion on January 11 (Friday) starting 5 p.m. at the Grand Convention Center.

For the decade of the 60s, Paul Hubahib of VECO asked me to call on the representatives from the 1960s (1960 to 1969) classes of both USC Boys and Girls High to attend a coordination meeting at 12 noon today at Baseline Restaurant. 

You can contact Paul at 0918-9172854, Pito Clavano 0919-2273737, Allan Ouano at 0917-3208242 or Ling Uy at 0919-3439880 for more information.