The T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF), un­der re­cent­ly ap­point­ed pres­i­dent Daymi­an Stew­art, has opt­ed against mak­ing whole­sale changes in terms of coach­ing per­son­nel and have de­cid­ed to con­tin­ue with Gideon Dick­son and Fran­cis­co Cruz in their re­spec­tive roles.

In a re­lease sent to the me­dia yes­ter­day via pres­i­dent Stew­art, it was stat­ed that the TTVF was pleased to an­nounce the re-ap­point­ment of its na­tion­al se­nior/Un­der-23 head coach­es in Pro­fes­sor Fran­cis­co Cruz for the women and In­spec­tor Gideon Dick­son for the men.

Ac­cord­ing to the Stew­art, the duo has been the most suc­cess­ful in these po­si­tions and are best suit­ed to achieve the goals set by the TTVF.

“The board ap­proved the ap­point­ments based on the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Na­tion­al Tech­ni­cal Com­mis­sion to the pre­vi­ous board.

Dr Trevor Th­er­oulde was al­so re-ap­point­ed as the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Tech­ni­cal Com­mis­sion. Pro­fes­sor Cruz, a Pe­ru­vian na­tion­al born in Cu­ba, has led the na­tion­al pro­gramme since 2005.

Dur­ing his tenure, the “Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers” as the se­nior na­tion­al women’s vol­ley­ball team is known, be­came the small­est na­tion to qual­i­fy for an FIVB Women’s World Cham­pi­onship in 2017, placed fourth in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games 2010, and won eight con­sec­u­tive Caribbean Cham­pi­onships.

Stew­art added, “Whilst we have some very good se­nior play­ers, it is crit­i­cal for the TTVF to look in­to the fu­ture and fo­cus on the next gen­er­a­tion of ath­letes.

“Cruz is the man for the job!” said pres­i­dent Stew­art. "The goal for this pro­gramme is sim­ple, to main­tain our Caribbean dom­i­nance whilst we ex­pose young ath­letes."

Stew­art has al­so ap­point­ed an ex­ec­u­tive team led by the for­mer stand-out ath­lete, first vice pres­i­dent Nolan Tash, a for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain and re­gion­al tour­na­ment “Most Valu­able Play­er” award re­cip­i­ent.

"The Ex­ec­u­tive High-Per­for­mance Com­mit­tee will be fo­cused on re­solv­ing past is­sues, whilst im­prov­ing the dai­ly train­ing en­vi­ron­ment and the wel­fare of ath­letes. In­spec­tor Dick­son, the old­er broth­er of Tash has led the na­tion­al pro­gramme at dif­fer­ent points in our his­to­ry and was the first coach to cap­ture the Caribbean Crown with the men in 2010," said Stew­art.

"In his pre­vi­ous tenure, we es­tab­lished a dom­i­nance in the re­gion sim­i­lar to that of our fe­male pro­gramme. Stew­art wants our male play­ers to be pre­pared to grasp the op­por­tu­ni­ties in the sport (Schol­ar­ships and Pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts), these op­por­tu­ni­ties are more at­tain­able by our women. The Board held back on the rec­om­men­da­tions for beach vol­ley­ball and un­der-age na­tion­al teams. The vol­ley­ball tech­nocrats are ex­plor­ing new in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es to beach vol­ley­ball and de­vel­op­ment. The ground­work in both ar­eas is tak­ing place cur­rent­ly. The TTVF whilst recog­nis­ing its fu­ture glo­ry on the world stage is in beach vol­ley­ball, are re­view­ing the struc­ture be­fore im­ple­men­ta­tion. The TTVF is al­so plac­ing a high pri­or­i­ty on its grass­roots de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme and link­ing the de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties to the un­der-age rep­re­sen­ta­tion teams.