Marva’s one regret
Former Americas boss wants a solution to improved quality, volume of umpires
Published:Wednesday | October 19, 2022 | 12:10 AMDaniel Wheeler/Staff Reporter
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WITH THE baton of leadership passed to new Americas Netball president Dr Bridget Adams, outgoing president, Marva Bernard, hopes that the new executive is able to improve the one area that she says she wishes she could have done more in – umpiring...
WITH THE baton of leadership passed to new Americas Netball president Dr Bridget Adams, outgoing president, Marva Bernard, hopes that the new executive is able to improve the one area that she says she wishes she could have done more in – umpiring.
Adams was elected unopposed in Saturday’s annual general meeting after Barbados Netball Association president Nisha Craigwell withdrew her candidacy for the position. Bernard’s tenure came to a close after choosing not to seek re-election.
While proud of the progress that her team has made in the region for the last four years, Bernard says that she hopes that the new board can tackle the issue of umpiring, not only raising the standards in the region but also attracting fresh faces into the sport. There is a growing concern that there isn’t a deep enough pool of umpires to take over from the more senior officials.
“On a personal note, I don’t think that I made the kind of impact that I wanted to make on umpiring. It has been a difficult area for this region and for Jamaica in my experience. All the training that we did for future leaders, and coaches. We did some training for umpiring but the plans that we wanted to do, it just didn’t happen,” Bernard told The Gleaner.
The training that Bernard was referring to was an online course that was held in October 2022, involving 154 persons from nine countries, which included 14 Jamaicans.
According to Bernard, the umpiring situation has been a long-standing issue with the main concern of not having new approaches to broaden the pool with younger umpires, who are ready to take the reins once the senior ones retire.
Bernard issued a warning that the situation will continue to deteriorate if things do not change.
“Paradigms and cultures have to change for umpiring to be different and better in the region, and I stand by what I say without fear of contradiction. Four years ago, when I said that the umpires in the region are ageing, four more years will come and they will get even older. If we don’t do something to engage the younger people, to encourage them, to see this pathway, then we are going to be talking about this for four years more,” Bernard said.