While some of the 2006 national sports awardees will be easy to select, the Sports Coach of the Year award will be a tough one for the panelists who will meet on January 26 to make the decision.
The Stanford Twenty/20 Cricket team stands a good chance of winning the Team of the Year award, while the Guyana Rugby Football Union’s (GRFU) Seven’s team, the Guyana Squash Association (GSA), the Guyana Football Federation’s Digicel Caribbean Cup team as well as the Guyana Amateur Boxing Associa-tion’s (GABA) team that participated in the Caribbean championships all have outside chances of winning, but the race for Coach of the Year award seems headed for a photo-finish.
Cricket coach Albert Smith, the Berbician, has had remarkable success with not only the Stanford team, but the many national teams over the years. Then there is Wayne Dover who has reaped tremendous success with the national football team, but of course under the guidance of Technical Director, Trinida-dian Jamal Shabazz.
The locals are currently in Trinidad for the finals of the Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament which kicks off today, having qualified by playing unbeaten in two rounds of competition. Laurie Adonis, the GRFU’s fulltime coach is doing a marvelous job of conducting coaching sessions for a number of students from different schools around the city and was responsible for the national ladies team performing outstandingly at the Caribbean 15’s Champion-ship in Jamaica last year. Like Adonis, boxing coach Carl Franklyn is also doing a wonderful job at many schools countrywide.
He is also the head coach for the English-speaking Caribbean’s first and only boxing academy as well as for the new gyms that the GABA opened last year.
Carl Ince, the coach of the National Junior Squash team that won the overall team title at the CASA Junior Caribbean Championship also performed outstandingly last year. The junior girl’s team played unbeaten in the CASA Junior championship that was hosted by Jamaica, while the boy’s team placed third. However, together, the locals won the overall team title.
Consideration must also be given to cycle coach Hassan Mohamed who throughout last year, not only organized track and road races, but also conducted his annual eight-week Teach Them Young clinic at the National Park and highlighted the potential in the young aspiring cyclists.
