Sean Nero

Ma­jor changes are com­ing for the sport of track and field as the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tors (NAAA) moves to mod­ernise its op­er­a­tions, as well as that of its mem­ber clubs says new­ly re-elect­ed pres­i­dent Ephraim Ser­rette.

Fol­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion's re­brand­ing ex­er­cise that be­gan with its name change back in 2009 from the Na­tion­al Am­a­teur Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion, the na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion (NSO) last year adopt­ed a new con­sti­tu­tion that in­cor­po­rates the body as a not for prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion reg­is­tered un­der the Com­pa­nies Act.

With these new guide­lines for the NSO's op­er­a­tions in place, Ser­rette said plans to re­vise the NAAA 17-mem­ber ex­ec­u­tive down­ward are com­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of its cor­po­rate struc­ture.

But that's not all. The NAAA, like oth­er na­tion­al track and field bod­ies around the world, will move to adopt a four-year term of of­fice for of­fi­cers; the mod­el used by the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Fed­er­a­tions (IAAF).

The present life of an NAAA ex­ec­u­tive was three years. Of equal im­por­tance to the NSO was ed­u­cat­ing its stake­hold­ers on a new vi­sion for the sport and the pro­tec­tion of its ath­letes, too, es­pe­cial­ly those seek­ing to de­vel­op their ath­let­ic prowess over­seas.

"If you ac­cept a schol­ar­ship at school that does not have sprint pro­gramme and you're a sprint­er, then what are you do­ing there? There are a num­ber of things that needs to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion be­fore ac­cept­ing a schol­ar­ship.

We have ath­letes leav­ing here and go­ing to run up and down in school hall ways. It is a very se­ri­ous prob­lem; ac­cept­ing US schol­ar­ships. Par­ents say my child go­ing to the US, not un­der­stand­ing that the qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion, the com­pe­ti­tion, where they are go­ing. We want to give some ad­vice on that," said Ser­rette.

He added, "Every­body wouldn't be able to go LSU (Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty). Every­body wouldn't be able to go UCLA (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia of Los An­ge­les). We have peo­ple in Min­neso­ta and all these cold places. Some ad­vice will be giv­en to them on that." The NAAA has set it­self a six­month tar­get�start­ing this Jan­u­ary� to ef­fec­tive­ly im­ple­ment new con­sti­tu­tion­al re­forms to bet­ter gov­ern its op­er­a­tions.

As part of the process, said Ser­rette, a board will be ap­point­ed with a pres­i­dent at the helm, be­fore the po­si­tion of chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer was ad­ver­tised. Ser­rette said, "One of our ma­jor achieve­ments was re­brand­ing (the NAAA) and putting the sport in po­si­tion where we have re-opened our com­mu­ni­ca­tion lines with all our ath­letes and coach­es. These are the ar­eas we have been fo­cused on over the last cou­ple of years.

That is what is go­ing to work for us. We al­so plan in this term to do work on the club struc­ture. We have a lot of clubs reg­is­tered. We have over 54 clubs. They sub­mit con­sti­tu­tions and they (are) sup­posed to have AGMs and we on­ly have in­for­ma­tion on three. We need to fix that!"

There were ma­jor pub­lic squab­bles be­tween the NAAA, the Min­istry of Sport and the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) dur­ing 2013.

The most dev­as­tat­ing was the dop­ing is­sue that forced lo­cal ath­letes Se­moy Hack­ett and Kel­ly Ann Bap­tiste to with­draw from the IAAF World Cham­pi­onships. Hack­ett had her pro­vi­sion­al ban over­turned and then was cleared by the As­so­ci­a­tion to com­pete at "Worlds". She sub­se­quent­ly re­turned home af­ter the IAAF re­in­states the ban pend­ing an ap­peal to the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport on the mat­ter.

Ser­rette in re­sponse to the fric­tion be­tween the NAAA and the State agen­cies said, "You don't pelt stones at trees that don't bear fruits! You pelt trees that have fruits. We are do­ing the right thing.

We see the Gov­ern­ment as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor so that the NSOs should be left to run the day-to-day busi­ness of the sport. We have the is­sue of in­ter­fer­ence. We have it in foot­ball, as well where the gov­ern­ing body (FI­FA) could pe­nalise them (clubs) once they have Gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence.

I don't see it as wran­gling. We are do­ing what we have been put there to do. We have to work with the Gov­ern­ment be­cause we are fund­ed by them. I can boast that the NAAA is one of the Fed­er­a­tions that go out and seek spon­sor­ship and that was one of my goals from very ear­ly; to bring the fed­er­a­tion to self-suf­fi­cien­cy."

He then fo­cused on this year's ex­cit­ing ros­ter of in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions that in­cludes the Com­mon­wealth Games, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games, World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships and CAC Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships at which his ath­letes will aim to reg­is­ter more cham­pi­onship per­for­mances and ul­ti­mate­ly sus­tain na­tion­al adu­la­tion and stir greater pride among the pop­u­lace.

Ser­rette said re­forms to the struc­ture in age cat­e­gori­sa­tion of ath­letes in com­pe­ti­tion were com­ing, too, in keep­ing with IAAF re­vi­sions where even num­bers will re­place odd ones. The new cat­e­gories are Un­der-10, 12, and 14, 16, 18 and U-20.

Stay­ing with his de­vel­op­ment theme Ser­rette said fol­low­ing the suc­cess of last month's NAAA work­shop on event pro­duc­tion and an­nounc­ing held with the aim of im­prov­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion's meets, oth­ers cov­er­ing top­ics such as club struc­ture and man­age­ment as well as how to choose ac­cess­ing in­ter­na­tion­al schol­ar­ships in this quar­ter