Senior national women's team captain Maylee Attin-Johnson and team-mates Dernelle Mascal, Ayana Russell, and Ahkeela Mollon were among 30 participants who were present when the T&T Football Association (T&TFA) began its Concacaf "D" License Coaching Course at its head offices at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, yesterday.
Others involved include ex-national women's team player Janelle Nedd and former national players
Hector Sam and Kerry Baptiste, as well as Marvin Oliver, Justin Latapy and Nicholas Griffith, coach of Fifa award recipient club Crown Trace.
The objective of the course is to introduce coaches to the basics of coaching young players in a player-centred environment. The course will run for four days with the target group being coaches of players aged to six-12 years old. Persons in this group include coaches, parents and teachers.
Among the topics of the course are the role of the coach educator; Principles of Coaching; Principles of the Game; Age Appropriate training; Session training; Physical training; Small sided games; Goalkeeping; Health and Safety and Community Club development.
The course is being conduced by Concacaf instructors Lenny Lake and Andre Waugh while confederation's Development manager Jonathan Martinez was also present.
Local football federation President Raymond Tim Kee expressed his delight on the fact that the TTFA, through the collaboration with Concacaf is able to offer coaching education to ex-national players as well as upcoming coaches from the different levels of local football.
"I am quite impressed and might I say extremely pleased to see some of our former national men's players and our Women Warriors listed among the participants who have been accepted to take part in this course. What this shows is there is a desire to acquire knowledge and this augers well for our football development," Tim Kee said.
"But aside from those who would have already had the opportunity to represent the country, the TTFA is also pleased to be able to offer similar opportunities for other aspiring coaches who possess that desire to work in local football at the community or grassroots level, at the primary schools, the smaller clubs and so on. The Association is looking forward to ensuring that the work is continued from the past where we had already introduced our 'D' and 'C' license coaching courses and hopefully this will bring more benefits to our development efforts," he added.
List of participants: Damien Daniel, Dernell Mascall, Denyse Wickham, Devin Elcock, Janelle Noel, Marvin Oliver, Dwayne Richardson, Hector Sam, Alishah Granger, Kerry Baptiste, Junior Phillip, Michael Spencer, Brian Ruiz, Kyle Small, Michael Defour, Justin Latapy-George, Ahkeela Mollon, Bevon George, Shivaurn Harding, Sean Reyes, Nicholas Griffith, Jeffrey Seecharan, Pires Ryan, Vasudev Vishnu, Casford Francis, Maurice Eligon, Maylee Attin-Johnson, Collis Marcano, Ayana Russell, Jinelle Nedd.