Kotleba Visits Ghana

6:48 AM Ellis 0 Comments




Accra - This probably will be the most delayed piece of news you'll read here this whole year. Thanks to vodafone for letting my internet and that of others in my neighborhood go off for no apparent reason for over a week. Enough of the "sorry for the inconvenience caused" speech, now to the real deal. FIBA sport director, Lubomir Kotleba whose work at FIBA involves overseeing training, selection and conduct of FIBA referees spent last Monday to Wednesday in Ghana before heading to Togo to facilitate a FIBA commissioners' clinic from Thursday to Saturday.

Apart from attending the GBBA's board meeting on Monday and going round town to visit teams practice, he spent the wet Wednesday morning conducting a FIBA rules change clinic for some coaches, referees and other members of the Ghana basketball family at the media center at Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra.

The clinic was a very insightful one by all standards. Kotleba(a former player, coach, executive and referee) proved to be a real teacher and understander of the game in its entirety. He made such good use of real game scenarios, got participants to get involved in the process even in answering of their own questions.

He started his talk by making a couple of statements, some of which were quite thought provoking. "basketball is never in a race with soccer, we are two different sports" he noted. He went on to say that the basketball world has to constantly pay tribute to the NBA for what they've done for the game and that we as Africans, have bodies naturally made for the game of basketball but really need to work hard to increase the level of the game here. Here's a list of some the things he talked about:
  • 3 point line
  • no charge semi circle
  • last two minutes in the 4th Q and any other OT played
  • Key: trapezoid, now rectangle
  • shot clock
  • status of ball
  • definition of eight seconds

The three hours spent for the clinic in my opinion, was worth while...but one thing he said that keeps reechoing in my subconscious is "rules are made to make the game go on, not to stop the game from going on!".

Theophilus Mensah is a Ghanaian basketball documentarian who has followed the game in Ghana for close to a decade. He travels across the counrty documenting all aspects of basketball culture in Ghana. His work was recently featured in Roads and Kingdoms.

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