The Tribune

THE New Providence Women's Basketball Association (NPWBA) is the only remaining female league, formed out of the New Providence Basketball Association in 2003 when Mynez Cargill-Sherman spearheaded a breakaway when she found the women leagues lacked support and took a backseat to those of the men.

"Right now women's basketball is still struggling," said Cargill-Sherman, the current president of NPWBA. "However, with sponsorship from Consolidated Water Corporation (CWCO) we've developed a promising junior programme which will eventually feed into the women's league.

"There are still only one or two gyms in the country where we can play, and there are so many men teams involved that women get squeezed out. It's the reason we initially formed the NPWBA - they found very little time to accommodate us, and we got side-lined, and nothing's changed."

She recalls various islands having women's leagues of their own when she played in her younger years. But now, it has "practically died out as people got up in age and retired from the game." As part of the solution, the NPWBA decided to revive participation in a younger demographic.

"That's why two years ago we established the junior programme, sponsored by CWCO," Cargill-Sherman said. "The raw talent we see just needs to be developed. The year before last was the first time in a while The Bahamas was able to send off a junior national team, and we won that tournament, and I think that was a direct result of the junior development programme."

The junior programme trains athletes from primary school age up to 18-years-old. Students are recruited to form the programme's usual seven teams of 13 players each, who compete in an average of 30 tournaments per year.

The season was scheduled to run from November but has been postponed until next month because of the lack of interest by the women who make up the teams. At least four teams are registered to compete in the league this year.

However, this weekend, the NPWBA will host a developmental programme for primary school teams at the CI Gibson Gymnasium. The competition will start at noon on Saturday and wrap up on Sunday, with a 3pm start.

St Francis/St Joseph, Xavier Lower School, Gavin Tynes, Temple Christian, Kingsway Academy, Teleos and possibly Carlton Francis are in the field.

CWCO is eager to assist the NPWBA again this year.

"We were proud to be an initial sponsor for the NPWBA's junior programme, and to keep that sponsorship going for three years," said Welliya Cargill, CWCO's accounts manager. "It's an incredible thing for women's basketball and young females in general because it creates an avenue for them to feel empowered in what usually tends to be a male-centric sport."

Cargill-Sherman welcomed the return of CWCO as they continue their mandate to provide an avenue for the women to be exposed when they start the regular season on March 1 and run for about two months. Each of the four teams - Bommer G Operators, Career Builders Tigers, Angels and the Elites - will play a three-round format.

"I think the women have been on their own for a long time and that's why they continue to struggle. We're practically holding on by a thread," Cargill-Sherman said. "The lack of support is why we're at the point where New Providence is the only women's basketball association left while the men have leagues in Bimini, Eleuthera, and Andros.

"I'm highly appreciative of CWCO. Without them, I don't think the junior programme would have even been established. There is a lot of work to take on, but I feel like our biggest challenge is getting the federation to support it. There are those corporate sponsors out there, like CWCO, that are willing to put into the programme, and that was the point I wanted to make to the federation: that a junior programme could be viable, and it is supported. What I really wanted to do was show them that it's all possible, and I think I've done that."

Cargill-Sherman said it's anticipated that the NPWBA will forge a relationship with the Grand Bahama Amateur Basketball Association, headed by Quinton 'Three-Ounce' Hall, in staging some home-and-away games to gain some interest among the women without a formal national championship for the women by the Bahamas Basketball Federation.