JBA putting plans in place to boost women’s basketball

President of the Jamaica Basketball Association (JBA), Paulton Gordon, says the association is preparing a development plan for women's basketball.

To ensure these plans are successful, Gordon said the association has laid out some objectives.

"First and foremost, we have to re-establish the women's league in Jamaica. We are (also) in the process of putting together a women's committee to coordinate that," he said.

Gordon said the revamping of the national women's basketball league will be costly but they will be doing their best to get the competition started soon.

"We have already got some donations from a Canadian group to basically kick-start the fund-raising for our local women's club league, so we are going to talk to that group to see how quickly we can get to the point where we can start our women's league," the local basketball boss said.

National basketball team member Sasha Dixon, who was one of two women who played in the celebrity match match of the E1 Caribbean Basketball League, said she is yearning for a competitive women's basketball tournament in Jamaica.

"I am really envious because we have never gotten this support (or) this platform to showcase our talents," the national shooting guard said.

"I can't recall the last time competitive basketball with a referee and structured basketball was played in Jamaica (on the women's side) - I think 2014," she said. "We would really love the competition even if it is not as big as this P.H.A.S.E 1 Basketball Summer League but even a female league in Jamaica would be appreciated."

Apart from a competitive women's league, Dixon said Jamaica needs to do more for young females who are interested in playing basketball.

"For the females to really step on the court at this level it would require some inter-school programmes to get the young ladies from early to know the sport and love the sport, then to be on this platform would be easy because it would just be to move from primary and high school into this stage," Dixon said.

Founder of P.H.A.S.E. 1 Academy and the E1 Basketball League, Wayne Dawkins, said he is willing to continue his contributions to the development of women's basketball in Jamaica.

"We plan to be inclusive so integrating females into it (plans to develop basketball in Jamaica) is very important," Dawkins said.