THE FINAL JUMPER

Part II of the article completed the presentation on post-secondary school days, involvement in refereeing and table-officiating, and basketball administration and began on the Jump Ball column. The article concludes below.

JUMP BALL COLUMNIST (Ctd): 135 articles (including this one) were published in The Sun's Jump Ball column over almost a 7-year, beginning in October 2016. Those articles were presented in 289 editions of the newspaper.

Several of the articles were published in multiple editions or parts. 57 (or 42.2%) of the 135 articles were presented in one part each, with 44 in two parts, 10 in three parts, 11 in four parts, 9 in five parts, 3 in six parts and one ('Basketball In The Family') in a whopping seven editions.

A wide range of topics were covered in the preceding 134 articles. These include, but are not limited to: basketball centres (16 articles); the presidents of the National Basketball Association; several teams that participated in the national league (18); several individuals (players, officials - 41); some aspects of Dominican basketball history (24); and a few 'outside the box' topics including Dominican doctors in basketball; basketball in the family; a few deceased members of our basketball fraternity (4); basketballers involved in arts, entertainment and culture; politician/basketballers; and schools' involvement in national basketball.

Other subject matters included commonalities in basketball team names (2), Dominica's participation in regional and sub-regional tournaments, a team of basketballers playing national league football, and politicians sponsoring basketball teams, etc.

PRODUCING REPORTS & COMPILATIONS:- (a) Basketball Season Reports: While serving my final stint on the DABA Executive, I produced three reports featuring information and statistics on DABA's 1987, 1988 and 1989 basketball seasons, respectively. Hard copies of those reports were made available to all national league teams.

Several years later, illustrated, more detailed reports were produced on the 2013, 2014 and 2015 basketball seasons on behalf of the DABA, which presented electronic copies of those documents to its affiliated teams.

A report was also produced on the inaugural Schools Basketball League (1987). That report was completed only in 2016, but copies were made available to the five "pioneer" participating schools, the Sports Division and the DABA.

In addition, a report on the 1992 Schools League and reports on the basketball segments of the 1999 and 2015 Windward Islands Schools Games were produced on behalf of the Sports Division.

In terms of sub-regional tournaments, statistical reports or compilations were produced on the inaugural OECS Basketball Tournament (1984), the inaugural OECS Champion-of-Champions Tournament (1987), the 6th OECS Basketball Tournament (1989), the 5th OECS Basketball Champion-of-Champions Tournament (1991); and the 1993 Windward Islands Basketball Championships. Those tournaments were all held in Roseau.

(b) Compilations of Newspaper Articles Featuring Basketball: The documentation of local basketball was taken beyond the production of reports for particular seasons and tournaments. Over the past few years, the columnist undertook the painstaking task of compiling what had been published on local, regional and international basketball in some of our local newspapers. Over 20 such compilations have been produced from 1982 through 2012.

Work on an 11-year compilation of basketball articles that appeared in the local press between 1968 and 1978 was started, but that is still a work in progress, although the Draft was extensively used as a reference when producing Jump Ball articles on basketball from that era. Copies of the completed compilations are housed at the National Documentation Centre.

(c) Compiling Jump Ball Articles: The 135 articles published in the Jump Ball column have been collated into 17 compilations. The articles, after publication, are reproduced verbatim but include additional illustrations to enhance the product's visual quality. The titles of individual compilations are all related to some aspect of basketball, viz. Jump Ball: Tip-Off; Possession, Swish; Dunking; Box-Out; Rebound; Fade-Away; Charging; Pivot; Score; Victory; Defence; Dribble; Turn-Over; 3-Pointer, Screen; and Basket.

(d) Annual lists of DABA League teams and competition winners were prepared (in one document) covering the period from the national league's inauguration (1966) up until the recent.

TRAINING OF OFFICIALS: In addition to the above, the columnist, together with other members of DBOA's Executive, conducted rules refresher sessions for DBOA members, table officiating sessions for Schools League table officials, and rules and court mechanics sessions with community league officials at Portsmouth, Trafalgar and Castle Bruce.

REMARKS: Although the writer played on only four teams in the National League, his overall contribution to basketball development was mostly in officiating and documentation.

Jump Ball's journey is now ending, and I trust that someone will continue the effort. Jump Ball thanks all readers of the column for their positive feedback and support; however, before hitting the final keystroke, a big THANK YOU to Mr. James, Christine, Portia and Helena at The Sun Office for allowing me to contribute to Dominica's basketball development.