The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

BACK in 2013, the Bahamas Handball Federation was formed after Wellington Miller, then president of the Bahamas Olympic Committee, returned from a meeting in Mexico and the president of the International Handball Federation wanted to spread the sport out to countries in the Americas and Caribbean region.

Although they have met and held coaches’ courses here in the Bahamas for beach handball in 2014, Miller said the executive board, headed by himself, is now complete and they are eager to officially launch the BHF to the public.

Yesterday, he introduced the executive board to the media.

Working along with Miller, who also serves as the administrator and chief executive officer, are Lawrence Hepburn as first vice president, Rupert Gardiner as second vice president, Sean Bastian as secretary general and Dawn Knowles as treasurer/finance and funding.

“Sometimes you might be as good in the other sports, so we want to open up avenues and give more opportunities for our young people to participate in sports and at the same time obtain athletic scholarships to top colleges and universities. It’s a new sport. It’s very fast and very active. So we’re hoping that we can get it into the schools and hopefully at the university level.” With Knowles, who is in charge of the Primary Schools Sports Association for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Gardiner, as a member of the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association and Bastian, a member of the Athletic team at the University of the Bahamas, all on board, Miller said they are on the right track to achieving their goal.

“We have already put on seminars with coaches here and we intent to do more next year,” he said. “We have a good management team put together and so we could do a lot of things.”

Hepburn has attended a series of meetings with the international body and he said they are looking to implement a lot of the programmes that they have received in pushing the sport forward here.

“Many of those initiatives will help us to grow the sport more rapidly,” Hepburn said. “Some of those initiatives are the invitation of other countries to come here and assist us with coaching courses and to allow our athletes to go into their countries so that they can develop their skills in handball.

“So those things, along with the newly developed North American Team Handball Federation will assist us more quickly in getting more equipment and other resources for the development of the sport. Recently, we had the separation in the Pan American Team Handball Federation and the Bahamas is now apart of the Northern Division, so we look to receive more readily support from the international body to help us.”

In February, Hepburn revealed that the BHF will host another clinic, through the assistance of the regional body, to help them push the sport forward.

“We are going to recriting teams because the Bahamas has been welcomed to bring their teams to the international community,” Hepburn stated. “Thery’re not concerned about how many teams we have. They just want to see our participation and so the Bahamas is being welcomed to bring their teams.

“So we are going to be reaching out to the community as early as January for the formation of national teams. I think this is a good way to go. As you would recognize, this thing start from the ground go up. This is from the federation level. So we are working our way down to the formation of associations and get more people exposed to the sport so that we can grow it.”

As one of the most exciting sport, according to Hepburn, who pointed out that it’s not the one where players knock the ball against the wall, but rather it’s team handball where there are more players involved. He said it’s considered to be one of the most exciting sport to participate in Europe and it’s growing fast in the United States.

He said he just returned from a meeting in Chicago where the newly formed United States Handball Association has agreed to provide some assistance to the Bahamas in getting the sport up and running here.

“We’re receiving more attention now because this region is behind in getting its programme up and running,” Hepburn said.

Hepburn said they hosted a camp in the summer where they had some players introduced to the sport, but with their executive board in place, they will start formulating the recruitment exercise to get more Bahamians involved in what he indicated was the genesis of basketball in the Bahamas to what has now become one of the most vibrant sport in the country.