Pri­ma­ry school coach­es may have at­tend­ed the third an­nu­al At­lantic Coach­ing Ex­cel­lence (ACE) Sym­po­sium to hear about foot­ball and crick­et, but an eth­i­cal gov­er­nance lawyer, a man­age­ment con­sul­tant and an Olympic track and field ath­lete were on the event's agen­da, which was held ear­li­er this month at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

The sym­po­sium sup­ple­ment­ed the tech­ni­cal train­ing giv­en to the coach­es in spe­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ses­sions held ear­li­er this year as part of the ACE Pro­gramme. Un­der the pro­gramme, At­lantic helps to pre­pare the coach­es to meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines by en­list­ing the guid­ance and ex­per­tise of Crick­et Aus­tralia and the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA). To date, At­lantic has fa­cil­i­tat­ed cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for some 600 pri­ma­ry school coach­es.

Ad­dress­ing the coach­es at the sym­po­sium, vice pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate Op­er­a­tions at At­lantic Toni Sir­ju-Ram­nar­ine said, "At­lantic's vi­sion has al­ways been to help en­able the next gen­er­a­tion of crick­eters and foot­ballers and we want you to be­come part­ners in our mis­sion.

"Over the last three years, the ACE Pro­gramme has fa­cil­i­tat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for 600 coach­es in pri­ma­ry school crick­et and foot­ball. The ACE Pro­gramme al­so took you through spe­cialised lead­er­ship train­ing in the an­nu­al ACE Sym­po­sium. Each Sym­po­sium helped to fa­cil­i­tate your holis­tic de­vel­op­ment. You have learned that you are more than mere coach­es: you are al­so men­tors and coun­selors, train­ing chil­dren not on­ly in sport­ing tech­niques but al­so im­part­ing to them life skills to equip them to build a brighter fu­ture."

Dur­ing the Sym­po­sium, the coach­es were ex­posed to ses­sions on Lead­er­ship De­vel­op­ment by Man­age­ment Con­sul­tant, Nigel Wall; Eth­i­cal Gov­er­nance by At­lantic's Se­nior At­tor­ney-at-Law, Ore­sa Charles and a mo­ti­va­tion­al ad­dress by At­lantic Sports Am­bas­sador and Olympic Sprint­er, Richard "Tor­pe­do" Thomp­son. Crick­et coach­es who were cer­ti­fied this year al­so re­ceived to­kens from At­lantic Sports Am­bas­sadors, Kieron Pol­lard and Richard Thomp­son.

Rhon­da Jones, a par­tic­i­pant in the pro­gramme since its in­cep­tion in 2012, said that the ses­sions had helped to boost her con­fi­dence in her crick­et coach­ing abil­i­ties.

"As a cer­ti­fied crick­et coach, I feel more con­fi­dent about my abil­i­ty to nur­ture the love for the game that the chil­dren have," Jones said. "Every time I at­tend these sym­po­siums, I learn some­thing new about de­vel­op­ing and men­tor­ing chil­dren in a pro­fes­sion­al way. Some chil­dren may have learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties or prob­lems at home. Now, I am bet­ter able to de­tect these things and deal with them in a bet­ter way, you know."

Theo Boyce, a foot­ball coach at­tached to the Port of Spain Ed­u­ca­tion­al Dis­trict, said that the pro­gramme had giv­en him new per­spec­tives about the de­vel­op­ment of the chil­dren he coached.

"I have to in­ter­act with a lot of young boys and girls who live un­der very dif­fi­cult con­di­tions," Boyce said. "Ses­sions like to­day help me to men­tor these chil­dren and give them the en­cour­age­ment they need to use their tal­ents on the field to go fur­ther in life."

Boyce al­so said the Sym­po­sium's ses­sion on Eth­i­cal Gov­er­nance would help him in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty as a sport­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor.

The coach­es al­so com­mend­ed their ses­sion in the Sym­po­sium with Thomp­son who shared his ex­pe­ri­ences on the in­ter­na­tion­al ath­let­ic cir­cuit. Thomp­son spoke of the ad­mi­ra­tion he felt for his own coach and the in­flu­ence of his coach on his suc­cess to date. He en­cour­aged the coach­es to con­tin­ue in their "call­ing" to pro­duce sport­ing stars that ex­cel both on and off the field. In ad­di­tion to nur­tur­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of ath­letes through the At­lantic Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et League and the At­lantic Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Foot­ball League, LNG pro­duc­er At­lantic has com­mit­ted to pro­vide these young ath­letes with all the nec­es­sary tools to suc­ceed.