In its first edition, BOTESSA produced a cohort of 12 graduates from the coaching clinic. For the first time in its programme, BOTESSA switched focus from football and athletics and dived into the volleyball fraternity by equipping aspiring coaches with the necessary skills and knowledge for their coaching career. The coaching clinic sessions took a period of five days at the Gaborone coaching clinic where all the 12 graduates went through the process put in place at the coaching clinic.
In an interview with Sport Monitor, Shadreck Modiakgotla stated that the move by BOTESSA to have the coaching clinic was solely to curate volleyball coaches in the local institutions to be recognised as coaches.
“This was one course that was looking at the fact that BOTESSA has been having institutions without qualified coaches. So our mandate was to try and bridge that gap,” Modiakgotla said. Modiakgotla further said the coaching clinic was a real strategy to plant a seed in volleyball coaches so that it can continue to thrive. “Some of these coaches have been coaching without appropriate skills or knowledge so we wanted to do this so that they can go out there and teach skills properly,” he revealed.
Additionally, he highlighted that volleyball, and the coaching clinic should be taken seriously as their mandate is to ensure that whoever is coaching volleyball possesses the right qualifications for the job not just to do it based on experience. Asked on the enrollment process of the coaching clinic, Modiakgotla stated that an invite was sent out to institutions.
Out of the many institutions in the country, only 12 got to be part of the clinic and went and completed the programme. “Initially it was to have almost everyone from the different institutions but unfortunately that did not happen, but our plan does not stop here we hope that in future we could have more people joining us,” he said.
Moreover, Modiakgotla stated that BOTESSA hopes to host level 1 coaching course together with the Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF). Meanwhile, Goitsemang Bareeleng who was among the first cohort of the 12 graduates expressed immense gratitude to BOTESSA and Modiakgotla for the stellar job. “We are thankful to BOTESSA for doing this for us and we are really grateful because this is the first of its kind.
We want to thank the instructor also for being patient with us in everything,” she said. She vowed to BOTESSA that they will soon start to see the results and see that the coaching clinic was not in vain.
“BOTESSA will start to see some difference and we are going to implement what we have learnt; you will see us grow better and continue supporting us as we go back to our institutions,” she said.
