USA coach keen in coaching SI team

A NEW dawn for basketball in the country will soon reach our destination as arrangements are on track to recruit a United States based coach to lead our national team at next years Pacific Games in Noumea. This revelation was revealed to Star Sport yesterday from national team member and Arizona College based basketball star Waiges Turueke. Turueke said that their Coach Maurice Leitzke has shown interest in helping Solomon Islands basketball team prepare for next years Pacific Games in New Caledonia. Leitzke is best known around the National College Basketball arena for his consecutive season wins in all the basketball college clubs he coached. Turueke added that the news would also come as a surprise to the countrys basketball federation but he was optimistic that Solomon Islands Basketball Federation (SIBF) would appreciate Coach Leitzke's offer. Turueke said he would be coming for his off season break next week and also planned to meet with the SIBF executives to discuss Leitzkes appointment. Im doing all the arrangement back here in Arizona and my coach has shown great interest in helping our national basketball team, he said. Asked how they would prepare funding to sign the USA coach, he added that Federation International Basketball Association has also indicated to help Solomon Islands bring over Leitzke. However, Turueke added that the USA coach have offered to do the task for free if plans dont work out. I think we have no choice because, lately the performance of our national basketball team has gone below par compared to other countries and we need to pull up our socks if we want to be contenders for a gold medal next year, he said. He added that the initial plan was to come over and sort out the paper work with the SIBF and try and get the coach into the country by May next year to start preparations for the Pacific Games. Meanwhile, Turueke added that two other boys with mixed parentage of United States and Solomon Islands have also indicated their interest to join the national basketball team next year. I have identified some of our college boys from Solomon Islands mixed parentage here and they are eager to join the team but it will depend on our boys back home, he said.
Courtesy of: solomonstarnews.com