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00:00What we've started is quite a unique opportunity for kids in Portsmouth that want to get themselves
00:09interested in basketball and take that to the next level and do it at college. So we
00:12are bringing in next year the Elite Basketball Programme, which will be based out of the
00:17hybrid campus here, which gives students an opportunity to combine their academics with
00:24their playing abilities in basketball. So the course will be split 50-50, you'll have
00:3010 hours of basketball delivery and 10 hours of basketball course delivery, so a little
00:35bit more academic with some sports science, nutrition, anatomy and physiology, but everything
00:41will be linked around basketball.
00:43Obviously it's not the sort of course that you've run before, so you've got a similar
00:49football course?
00:50Yeah, so we run the Elite Football Course, which has been hugely successful with hundreds
00:53of kids coming through the programme over the years, and there was just a gap in the
00:57market really for a basketball provision which supports the development of basketball players
01:02to be able to create a career for them in basketball. Obviously one of the biggest things
01:08is it's still the equivalent of 3A level, so students can still go to university with
01:13the outcome of the course, but there's a lot of opportunities around coaching, playing
01:18analysis and to create other jobs.
01:21We've got the Open Evening on Wednesday and Thursday this week, where you can come and
01:27speak to us as lecturers and the people that run the sports courses. So to find out a little
01:32bit more about the basketball course in itself, in addition we're running the Taser event
01:37on Tuesday 27th October, where any Year 11 players can come in and find out a little
01:42bit more about it.
01:43A few years ago Rob, who set up Portsmouth Force, came to us and said he wanted to create
01:48a pathway which enabled students to have an opportunity to progress into the Force team
01:54at the men's level. We've always supported the junior side, so we've been in partnership
01:59with them for a number of years, working with kids aged 4 to 18 and then having a pathway
02:04to the college, but now the pathway is a little bit more structured in the fact of now that
02:10you can progress straight into a basketball qualification that's being run here and it
02:14is completely unique. The only other course like this is at Itching in Southampton, so
02:19to have something like this in the city, I do not wait to buy a football team in Portsmouth.
02:25So we've got Portsmouth Force, we've got a national team in Division 3. How important
02:32is it to the club to have this type of course and this type of partnership with the college?
02:36I think it's really important. I think we're at a really crucial kind of time to try and
02:41represent Portsmouth basketball outside of Portsmouth. I see a lot of basketball players
02:45from around the country, so it's now great that we can have our own identity. So again,
02:50anyone who's potentially knocking on the door of making a playing career for themselves
02:54who originate from Portsmouth, you have to send them elsewhere. So now we have the opportunity
02:59to train them in-house. But again, it's not just about a playing career. Through the course
03:03there are other avenues. We're trying to teach these young guys how to find a man and how
03:08to look for jobs, etc. If basketball is the thing that they love, there are other careers of it.