‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts wants more locals included

By Rawle Toney

With the announcement that the prestigious Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Men’s Championships will be held in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) from June 28-July 4, national coach Bobby Codogan says that Guyana should definitely participate.

According to Codogan who also coaches the Courts Pacesetters basketball club, Guyana has not been represented at the championships since 2000 when it was hosted in Barbados and that year they finished third.

He said that the attendance would signal to the other regions that Guyana is still a force to be reckoned with in the sport of basketball.

“I think it’s worth attending and mostly for our local players since they have been working hard and it’s only right for their talents to be exposed. It’s been almost nine years since we last attended and I think we need to let people know that we still exist and we are still dominant” said the national coach.

Codogan says that over the next few days he will be on the case of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) to have them make a valiant effort to have a team at the tournament and more so to have more local players on the squad.

At last year’s championship that was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Guyana fielded an all-overseas contingent since the few locals that were shortlisted were denied their entry visas. But the former national player-turn-coach said that once the GABF starts putting systems in place early, he sees no problem with the local players obtaining a UK visa.

“The local players have been showing steady signs of improvement and right now they are lacking the much needed exposure which will help them tremendously in their development. Most of our local players are starting to migrate and we have to encourage them by rewarding them by attending the championships” said Codogan.

Meanwhile, one player is certainly not holding his tongue as it relates to Guyana being represented at the championships.

Twenty-six-year-old Dwayne `Brown Sugar’ Roberts of Linden is probably one of Guyana’s best power forwards and he showed this at the just concluded next level entertainment (NLE) basketball tournament.

His team, the Victory Valley Royals, finished second but Roberts was named the best defensive player of the tournament, many believed that he should have also been named the tournament MVP for his show stopping performances on a nightly basis.

The player says that while attending the tournament is good, making sure that the local players have an opportunity to make a name for themselves should also be a top priority.

He said that the GABF should make their application on time and also screen their shortlisted players before sending them to the UK High Commission.

Roberts said that he has no knowledge of a basketball player who has ever received a visitor’s visa and absconded and made reference to the Cuban team who had gotten their visas to enter Puerto Rico last year.

He said that the GABF just need to do things on a timely basis.

“The GABF should reward their top local players an opportunity to go out and play among some of the Caribbean’s best players. I think only the best available players from overseas should be given a chance to make the team because if you look at all the other countries, this is what they normally do” said Roberts.

The GABF will have until April 15 to indicate to the CBC if they will be participating and until May 1 to pay the tournament registration fee of US$1,000.