Thipe was elected by 11 affiliates beating Terence Showa who received seven votes. Thipe was elected during an elective Annual General Meeting (AGM) that was held over the weekend in Gaborone. The vice president position, which was unopposed, went to Ponalo Tshosa while Katlego Rakobe was also unopposed as secretary-general. The new technical director is Trynos Moyo after winning by 12 votes over six that were received by Tiro Serumola. Abaleng Lesego is the spokesperson while the position for the treasurer remains vacant. Speaking to SportMonitor, Thipe said he is not a stranger into BBA leadership as he has served before in different capacities and left to serve in the AUSC Region 5 responsible for basketball in the region. “I have been responsible in delivering basketball during Region 5 Games that were held in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi and next year we will be in Namibia in June. I bring in lots of experience to the BBA.
The association used to be in tier three, and currently it is in tier two in the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) tier system. It is my responsibility to make sure that the association is promoted to tier one, which is possible because there is a criteria that has to be followed,” he said. Thipe said the position of the treasurer remains vacant because it is a special role that requires the individual to have financial qualifications, adding that the committee is allowed to co-opt. The new leader said he has crafted a model that focuses more on the development of players. “There is no short cut when it comes to player development or else you will not get results that you need. The model that we will be using cuts across all sport codes. I want to support academies, those centres also create employment for the youth. In academies, players are active the entire year especially when compared to schools where ball is played during a certain term. That means you cannot develop a quality player when they are not active the entire year. I am not discarding school sport because it can bridge the gap in areas where academies do not exist,” he said. Thipe explained that academies are self sustaining because they are funded by parents but there should be safe guarding.
He said the plan is to commercialise the national league, whereby it is owned by a company and BBA becomes a shareholder. “The league cannot be run by volunteers because they have limitations. The next two seasons I want us to have the best league that will attract expression of interest from private companies. I am not saying we are going to fold our arms and not look for sponsors, we will look for them. The issue of lack of a basketball facility pains me, basketball is an indoor sport, without an indoor facility we cannot compete with the world,” he said. Thipe said Botswana is the only country without an indoor facility in the region. He mentioned that the University of Botswana arena is expensive for sporting codes.
