Federation appoints Aaron as coaching director

THE Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea (BFPNG) has appointed Martha Aaron as national coaching director.
Aaron was assistant coach of the national women’s team to the 2017 Melanesian Cup and 2019 Pacific Games and coaches her local team in Lae.
BFPNG president Karo Lelai also supported Aaron’s successful nomination for a coaching programme with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee under the International Olympic Committee.
Aaron is also a master educator under the Oceania Sports Education Programme (Osep).
She has devised a pathway for developing new coaches, up-skilling current coaches and targeting coaches for Fiba certification.
Lelai said the pathway was shared with the new executive at their first meeting on Sept 5.
“We look forward to supporting Aaron depending on availability of resources, and working with you all to roll out this programme,” she said.
“Workshops and training sessions are planned for 2020-2021 and we want as many participants as possible.”
Lelai said BFPNG was collaborating with Fiba Oceania, the PNG Olympic Committee and Osep to deliver the coaching programme.
Apart from technical basketball skills, BFPNG also requires coaches to have a sufficient understanding of high performance planning, harassment and safeguarding of athletes and anti-doping.
Aaron kick-started the workshops in Lae earlier this year with Lae-based coaches as part of her project for the coaching course.
“We also had online webinars hosted by Fiba Oceania, details of which we shared on our Facebook page and gave open invitation to everyone to participate (whether affiliated or not),” Lelai said.
“These free webinars are expected to continue.”
The coaching pathway is now linked to development of coaches for national duties and covers the junior and senior teams.
Meanwhile, the BFPNG executive has also tasked the PNG Basketball Technical Officials Association to formulate plans for development and certification of referees and bench officials.
Together with Fiba Oceania and Osep and PNGOC, BFPNG will also support these plans depending on available resources.
Fiba Oceania is already running free online webinars details of which are always published on its Facebook page.
Technical officials need to affiliate to their association to benefit.
Those interested can contact interim president Ronnie Mea if they have any queries or wish to assist.