Starting from scratch: Volleyball at the green light
Published:Wednesday | January 5, 2022 | 12:06 AMHubert Lawrence/Gleaner Writer
THE JAMAICA Volleyball Association (JaVA) has been diligent ever since the COVID-19 pandemic smashed its local and international competition schedule. With training and tournaments removed from the realm of possibility, JaVA had concentrated on developing the skill and knowledge of coaches and officials. However, with the green light to return to the courts for play received on November 8, JaVA President Jacqueline Cowan is hopeful.
“We were elated and grateful, because we’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. So now we know we have some work to do, but we’re really happy and all of our clubs and affiliates were overjoyed, too, because we have been waiting to see what was going to be happening. So when we let them know, everyone was really, really happy, and we got into motion from day one,” Cowan had said when the green light was given by the Government.
Like many sporting associations, JaVA depends on high-school competitions to unearth new prospects, and Cowan is banking on a partnership with the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association to put the bounce back in volleyball.
“What we’re looking at is a certification programme, where you have to be at a certain level to coach at the high-school level. In addition to that, we will provide technical support to the coaches within the high schools because we do have that capability; so we will support technically, and we will support with equipment as much as we can,” she said.
According to Cowan, the COVID-enforced break has hurt the sport.
“It has set us back from a development point of view; and it has also set us back in terms of our ranking on the regional and international stage. So, whereas other countries in the Eastern Caribbean were able to continue to play, we were not. So those countries, even though they might not be as good as us, their rankings have now gone ahead of us because the rankings [in part] are based on the number of games that you play,” she explained.
Resumption of the local club league is also on the agenda but faces a high hurdle. “Out of the 15 clubs that actually play in our club league, only two at this point in time have venues that they can use to train. That’s a big issue, because if they cannot train, that means they cannot participate, and we cannot do a league with two teams,” Cowan revealed in December.
Still, participation at home will be a prime focus for JaVA this year.
“We need to find more persons to be able to matriculate to our national programme. So we’re going to concentrate on local competitions to see how best we can find the players, because we’re really starting from scratch at this point,” she said.
In the meantime, Jamaican coaches and officials have continued to develop their skills. Most recently, Cowan recounted, 10 local referees did online training alongside about 80 other referees from the region.