The Belize Basketball Federation (BBF) conducted a 3-day training on the application and use of the FIBA official basketball database – the FIBA Organizer – and its real-time statistics recording software – FIBA LiveStats. Mr. Lucas Garcia, a certified FIBA Digital Expert from Argentina, facilitated the training, which was hosted by the San Ignacio & Santa Elena Basketball Association (SSBA), and held at Sacred Heart College from Friday 10th to Sunday 12th December.
FIBA Organizer is an electronic database made available by FIBA to all member countries, free of cost. FIBA’s objective is to maintain one worldwide standard for player & tournament information and game statistics. The BBF objective with this workshop is to start the process of registering all basketball players, coaches and officials in Belize, as well as to equip each association with the capacity to administrate their tournaments in a more efficient manner. FIBA organizer is a one-stop shop for the associations to administrate tournaments – from making schedules to recording stats per player per game, just like the pros do it.
The FIBA Livestats software is an add-on module of the FIBA organizer that can be used to record game stats during a game. The live stats can be done online or offline, and will allow desk officials to provide to coaches and the media game statistics at the end of each quarter. Player stats, profile bio and other info will now be online via the BBF website bbfbelize.org and by extension the FIBA website.
The workshop had participants from all member associations – David Lacey, Phillip Waight, Ron Nicholson, Kevin Pitts and Mark Usher from Belize District; Bruce Flowers and Rohit Pandy of Belmopan; Jovan Mitchell and Jamir Flores of Dangriga; Jerry Nicholas from Punta Gorda; Shane Sebastian from Corozal; Rigoberto Novelo, Carl Westby and Clarence Sheppard from Orange Walk; Joseph Trapp, Rachel, Karim, Vaneene Juan, Jonell Obrien, Kurt Burgess, Kevin Simpson and Melvin Pinelo from the host association SSBA.
The BBF and the SSBA would like to give special thanks to BECOL, BTL, Chaa Creek Resort, Sacred Heart College and FIBA Americas for providing support to make this workshop a success.