BANMI officials back from FIBA Oceania seminar

Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands president Mike Muna and vice president Elias Rangamar returned from their trip to New Zealand on Monday and the duo is eager to share what they learned in hopes of improving the state of basketball in the Commonwealth. I used Shan Seman's article for SaipanTribune to cover this story.

Muna and Rangamar took part in FIBA Oceania’s Administrators Seminar in hopes of enhancing their knowledge and skills on improving basketball programs, joining 14 other national federations within the Oceania region. The seminar focused on the administrative side of a federation, as well as the developing technology that FIBA hopes will improve the sport in the Oceania region.
“In terms of the administrative part, we went through strategic planning…and the seminar emphasized the importance of doing strategic planning for all the different federations. It was all about outlining all the different parts of planning on how to make basketball work, from an administrative, budget, coach, and referee standpoint. It dealt with developing plans for each one of those areas,” Rangamar said.
Muna explained that if everything gets in line and those involved in the sport fully understand the need to prepare for future events, CNMI basketball could improve against other countries in the Pacific.
“It’s an eye opener for us and in order for us to succeed in any sport, we need support from the community, government, and we need to have coaches that coach from the very beginning and continue on. We cannot have this revolving door of coaches. Win or lose, we need to make sure they learn from their mistakes,” he said.