PNG women’s basketball assistant coach travels to US

NATIONAL women’s basketball team assistant coach Martha Aaron is in Colorado Springs, United States, as part of an International Coach Enrichment Certificate Programme (ICECP).
Lae resident Aaron, who was part of the team to the Pacific Games in Samoa in July, left Papua New Guinea on Sept 14 for the US where she will be for a month.
She will spend three weeks at the Olympic Training Centre of the US Olympic Committee (USOC) followed by a week-long coaching apprenticeship in Philadelphia before returning to the country.
She is on an Olympic coaches scholarship supported by US Olympic Committee, International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee (PNGOC).
Aaron said she was appreciative of PNGOC’s support to build her coaching capacity.
Lae Secondary School deputy principal Aaron has been heavily involved in netball and basketball in the Morobe capital.
She has also coached at the community level, leading Team Morobe to the PNG Games.
“I will learn as much as I can from participating coaches around the world and from the course facilitators,” Aaron said.
She was recently trained as a master educator under the Oceania Sports Education Programme.
Aaron was identified and recommended through workshops run by PNGOC leading up to the Pacific Games.
“The experience is invaluable,” Aaron said.
“I also believe in promoting the Olympic spirit. Hence, appreciation also to Olympic Solidarity for the support.”
This is the 11th edition of the ICECP.
The programme provides coaches with intensive education that consists of lectures, projects, guest speakers, participant presentations, group work, field trips and project planning.
Topics covered are sport nutrition, sport medicine, injury management and prevention, sport psychology and physiology, sport administration and coaching methods.
Participants are all national-level coaches in their home countries with the class of 2019 comprising of 32 coaches from 26 nations, five continents representing 18 sports.
Following her participation, Aaron will be required to work on a project for her respective sport in PNG.
Aaron is the second participant from PNG with Chris Amini graduating with honours from the programme early this year.
His project is on Team PNG Elite Performance Education Programme aimed at elite coaches.