IN TERMS OF NATIONAL PRESTIGE, basketball can be seen as standing third to cricket and football. However, such public perception should not be allowed to mask the fact that the sport in Barbados still carries a sizeable mass appeal, particularly among the youth.
One reason basketball has not over the years been able to translate this large following into greater sporting dominance is the consistent failure to provide the game, on a large scale, with modern playing facilities, including indoor courts. Such facilities are glaringly absent, apart from those at Barbados Community College and the Gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex. Even so, these indoor basketball amenities are part of a multi-purpose arrangement and are used by other interests from time to time.
As it stands, the vast majority of basketball courts across Barbados are situated outdoors and are sited in the midst of residential areas, more as a means of providing outlets for youngsters to expend energy and let off steam in a structured activity with its own rules and regulations than as a planned stage in the growth and development of the fast-paced game.
Despite such limitations, basketball has been able to retain a large measure of popularity, including the ability of some of its players to win scholarships and contracts abroad. Its popularity has also been kept alive by cable television networks which show the United States National Basketball Association (NBA) games across the world, including Barbados.
However, this reasonable standing in the eyes of others that matter could now be in some jeopardy, given the recent instances of players indulging in grossly violent behaviour against one another on the basketball court itself.
To its lasting credit, the Barbados Amateur Basketball Association?(BABA) has been adopting a zero tolerance approach to this uncouth behaviour with some of the strongest possible penalties being imposed on offenders. This is to be highly commended, as should be the association’s decision to improve security at matches.
But these well-meaning tough efforts by the administrators need to be supported by more long-term policies and programmes designed to prevent the sport from falling victim to the latent hostility and violence currently too evident among players and supporters.
It would be a disgrace if basketball were to be allowed to be tarnished by a subculture of violence that has, for example, dogged football and which the latter is hoping to overcome through the mounting of lucrative tournaments to hopefully induce a much higher standard of performance from players and better behaviour from followers in the public.
Perhaps there could be a national consensus across football, basketball and other sports to stamp out violence and other forms of misbehaviour among players by making penalized offenders in one sport ineligible for participation in officially organized activities in others.
