Jer­mille Danclar, a for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary of Ten­nisTT is the re­cip­i­ent of an ITF schol­ar­ship.

He will use it to pur­sue a Mas­ters De­gree in Sports Ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Russ­ian In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Uni­ver­si­ty (RI­OU)- 2021/22.

The schol­ar­ship is an ITF 2024 Ini­tia­tive to sup­port the pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment of ten­nis ad­min­is­tra­tors, whose hard work and ded­i­ca­tion have been the foun­da­tion of the sport world­wide.

Danclar has worked tire­less­ly in the sport for many years and has opt­ed to take a much-need­ed break for the past year or so. To­geth­er with pres­i­dent Hay­den Mitchell, who was re-elect­ed as a di­rec­tor on the Board of COTECC last week, the duo has trans­formed the sport in T&T tremen­dous­ly, by en­sur­ing that de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes are im­ple­ment­ed and reach­able for ten­nis stake­hold­ers at all lev­els.

A re­lease re­cent­ly stat­ed: “This se­lec­tion by both in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies is al­so viewed as a strong ex­pres­sion of con­fi­dence in the po­ten­tial of Ten­nisTT’s nom­i­nee for the ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of sport and sport­ing pro­grammes. ITF and RI­OU have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Co­op­er­a­tion with the aim of pro­mot­ing the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion in the ten­nis fam­i­ly, Olympic Move­ment and wider sports in­dus­try.”

It added: “The RI­OU MSA Course is one of the top three Post­grad­u­ate Sport Man­age­ment Cours­es, be­ing ranked 2nd in Eu­rope. Ten­nisTT is there­fore ho­n­oured to have its ten­nis stal­wart and en­thu­si­ast ac­cept­ed in­to the Pro­gramme.

“A well-de­serv­ing Danclar en­tered the world of ten­nis as a ju­nior play­er then tran­si­tioned as a na­tion­al ath­lete gain­ing a ten­nis schol­ar­ship to Delaware State Uni­ver­si­ty 1995-1998. There he led his Uni­ver­si­ty’s Ten­nis Team as cap­tain for three years, while earn­ing the MVP ti­tles in 1995 and 1998. Af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ing his BSc Physics/En­gi­neer­ing and MSc Physics (Elec­troOp­tics), he re­turned to T&T.

“Recog­nised as be­ing a very dy­nam­ic and en­thu­si­as­tic in­di­vid­ual with a love for learn­ing and em­brac­ing chal­lenges, Mr Danclar ad­vanced in­to the are­na of sports ad­min­is­tra­tion where he present­ly func­tions as Com­mit­tee Mem­ber – ITF Se­niors Com­mit­tee, Sub-Re­gion 4 Pres­i­dent – Con­fed­er­a­tion of Ten­nis for Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean (COTECC), and pres­i­dent – Ari­ma Ten­nis Mas­ters.”

“In the re­cent past, Danclar has held po­si­tions of Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and Pres­i­dent of Ten­nisTT. He al­so or­gan­ised many re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments, train­ing camps, con­fer­ences, cours­es and train­ing work­shops, which helped to earn Ten­nisTT the ITF’s award for Ex­cel­lence in Ten­nis De­vel­op­ment in 2019 and the First Cit­i­zens Ad­min­is­tra­tor of the Year Award in 2020.

“By Danclar earn­ing a cov­et­ed spot in the MSA 2021/2022 co­hort, Ten­nisTT looks for­ward to him be­ing a pil­lar of knowl­edge, wis­dom and ex­pe­ri­ence to the man­age­ment of the lo­cal sport in­dus­try, lead­ing T&T to­wards its goal of be­com­ing the re­gion­al hub for ten­nis de­vel­op­ment. The RI­OU in­forms that over the pe­ri­od 2013-2019 the MSA has had a glob­al reach of 63 coun­tries, with T&T be­ing one of two Caribbean coun­tries, and one of eight COTECC na­tions.

“Ten­nisTT ac­knowl­edges the in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty that has been pre­sent­ed through Mr Danclar’s ac­cep­tance and the As­so­ci­a­tion sup­ports him on this ex­cit­ing jour­ney. Ten­nisTT re­mains cog­nisant of his per­pet­u­al quest for knowl­edge and ex­cel­lence in sport ad­min­is­tra­tion, with a view to en­hanc­ing the de­vel­op­ment of our in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty in sport and more specif­i­cal­ly the sport of ten­nis,” it con­clud­ed.