Solomon Islands Volleyball Federation (SIVF) ‘National Level 1’ Course Training kicked off yesterday at Solomon Islands National Institute of Sport (SINIS).
President of SIVF, Morris Maitaki welcomed all participants, expressing his gratitude with admiration to them for showing their commitment and ambition to become a Coach and to understand more on Volleyball.
Mr Maitaki before opening the course workshop reminded that volleyball sport is no longer a sport to just enjoy and socialize with, but it is a sport that one can pursue and go through its pathway to become a top professional player or Coach.
For the past years, the SIVF President explain that coaching has been a big problem for Volleyball, as there has been not much qualified coaches to guide the clubs.
“This is why the Executive coming in the last 15 years are emphasizing more on competition and refereeing on games,” said Maitaki.
“We have been organizing a lot of competitions nationally and locally, and we have been participating in all regional events, as we emphasize more on competitions. We organize the national championship, the provincial games, provincial national championship and club championship, but again the issue of coaching is still a big gap.
“Although we won Silver medal in Beach Volleyball during the XVII Pacific Games, as in other past games winning silver and bronze medals, yet, we still rely on external coaches. Our indoor team during the last Pacific Games have now ranked 6th in the Pacific, and are in ‘Tier 1’, yet we rely on international coaches and mentors.
“From now on, the aim of the federation and technical officials is we will put more efficiency on coaching. In your sport we need stars, in any sport we need stars, we need top players, we need top athletes, but we cannot produce stars without a coach. Coaching is the paramount pillar in order to build best players in your sport. And as from now on, participants we will begin with you."
“It is our plan for the next 10 years aiming for the Olympic Games 2032, so we start now with your participation today. We need committed coaches, all along I have been observing that coaches are not very committed in most clubs, it is only very few clubs that undergo coaching.”
Before starting their upcoming national Volleyball league, the SIVF President said they must organize this three-day course purposely to assist clubs coaches to support their clubs.
“If you do not have any clubs [speaking to participants], you can look out for many clubs that are participating, you can volunteer for any club. You can gain as much knowledge, ideas, philosophy and principles in coaching, but if you do not practice it, it will be meaningless,” remind Maitaki.
“Your presence shows me that despite your many busy schedules, you are committed to participate with your ambition to start as a coach and to help build our clubs. And, it is our pride from the grassroots to the club levels, national levels that we have to emphasize a lot on coaching."
“We will open a lot of opportunities, if you are interested in coaching the local clubs, the national teams, provincial teams, or if you can help our coaches voluntarily in school leagues, school programs and such, we will be very happy to accommodate anyone that is committed and ambitious to become a coach. Having seen different people coming from different ethnic groups to participate in this course really gives me a good feeling and I am excited, as it is an indication that we have to spread the sport in all ethnic groups."
“We want to see proper volleyball. A lot of clubs are not playing proper volleyball, from now if you graduate from this workshop, I want to see you return and help within the clubs. As I have said earlier, we will not build stars until it is started from you as a coach. So this should be our focus from now on. Coaching is a very important and difficult job. It is very hardworking, but if it is your passion, if you are interested, focused to be committed with your aim then I believe you will be the best coach."
"And if you are committed, you will not go unnoticed. We invest to those who shows commitment, dedication, and I am looking forward to invest on who that will make a difference out of these programs. We have other upcoming coaching programs, and I also invite you to build from here and move on. We look forward to building more programs starting from this, and hope that we will build a very strong coaching commission that drives our technical capability that will help to grow our Volleyball sport nationally and regionally.”
On the first day of the three-day course, Coach Participants underwent the sessions of:
1. Coach Roles and Responsibilities
2. Coaching Styles
3. Communication
4. Learning Preferences
5. Holistic Development (Talent Identification Development), Wellbeing, Nutrition, Mental Skills, Physio, Strength and Conditioning (S&C) warm up
6. Daily Training Environment (DTE) and Daily Competition Environment (DCE)
7. Demonstrating a skill
8. Session Planning
9. Session Planning Preparation
10. Practical Session Planning
Assisting SIVF in hosting the three-day course is SINIS and its performance service teams.
The Volleyball workshop for this week is held on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Around 20 participants are attending the three-day Volleyball workshop.
Source: Press Release, SINIS Media