THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN PERIL

While the announcement last week that the Bahamas Basketball Nationals for High Schools will now come off on 27 March of this year, it is not without its issues.  These games are most important for our kids because this is the chance when all of the coaches from abroad get to see the talent we have here and they come to recruit. Evon Wisdom, who is the sports director for the Ministry of Education, is a tireless promoter of the championships.  The question we ask is whether he and the championships and high school basketball are getting the support that they deserve. The Ministers and public officials under the FNM do not seem to give a hoot. Now the Nationals are in crisis because the Ministry of Education has underfunded the games.  You would think that with these annual championships taking place in Freeport, and with Freeport needing all the help it can get, the FNM government which has five seats in the island would bend over backwards to make sure that this is successful.  What about the children?  The exposure for them is invaluable.  This is the one thing that young kids seem engaged in and we ought to encourage it.  Right now, each school has to find 96 dollars per person to get the kids up to Grand Bahama. Where would they find this?  The Ministry has limited the number of children to 12 per team with three coaches but each team has 15 children so three have to be told they can’t go.  We point this out as a stark difference between the FNM and the PLP.  Under the PLP, there would have been no question that these games would be fully funded.  But this cold-hearted group that is only interested in the bottom line to the exclusion of all else care not a whit about that.  Well we say this, those who sow the wind, will reap the whirlwind.