Lo­cal women’s bas­ket­ballers who com­pet­ed in the Fe­male Bas­ket­ball Ac­tion (Fem BA) tour­na­ment have caught the at­ten­tion of the JC Pro Clas­sic Bas­ket­ball League in New York City (NYC) in the Unit­ed States.

Jan­ice Carter, League Com­mis­sion­er of NYC JC Pro Clas­sic Bas­ket­ball in­vit­ed Fem BA to par­tic­i­pate in the Sum­mer All-star Week­end, which will be host­ed at Tomp­kins Square Park, 335 East 10th Street in New York, from Ju­ly 27-28, af­ter view­ing Fem BA “The Re­turn” Tour­na­ment, which was host­ed in Ju­ly 2023 and live streamed.

Ac­cord­ing to Fem BA pres­i­dent Ali­cia Cum­ber­batch-Joseph, the as­so­ci­a­tion re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion let­ter from Carter in­di­cat­ing that her or­gan­i­sa­tion has “recog­nised Fem BA’s vi­sion is to in­crease and re-de­vel­op fe­male bas­ket­ball in T&T, as there is ex­cel­lent tal­ent among the ju­nior play­ers.”

She added that the JC Pro Clas­sic will give the play­ers a great op­por­tu­ni­ty as they com­pete and be scout­ed by DI and DII coach­es of the USA and that the com­pe­ti­tion can pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T’s fe­male bas­ket­ball and USA.

“With few to lit­tle op­por­tu­ni­ties for the ju­nior play­ers lo­cal­ly, par­tic­i­pat­ing at JC Pro Clas­sic Bas­ket­ball League in New York while be­ing scout­ed by coach­es for schol­ar­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties is the main ob­jec­tive for the girls and Fem BA,” said Cum­ber­batch-Joseph.

“Ma­jor­i­ty of T&T’s ju­nior play­ers are Di­vi­sion I and II high school and col­lege wor­thy ap­pli­cants. They are ath­let­ic, skilled with a high bas­ket­ball “IQ”, game aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing etc. Such tal­ent and skill needs to be chal­lenged at an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el as bas­ket­ball ad­vance­ment in TTO is lim­it­ed.

At present, Fem BA is seek­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port to make the trip a re­al­i­ty for the Fem BA Gen­e­sis team, who has been train­ing on Thurs­days and Fri­days from 5 pm to 8 pm and Sat­ur­days and Sun­days from 4 pm to 7 pm at En­ter­prise Street, African Grounds in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas for the past three months. The team com­pris­es 24 play­ers, some who are for­mer na­tion­al play­ers, as they have rep­re­sent­ed T&T in two di­vi­sions, Un­der-18 and U-23.

“Fem BA has been work­ing tire­less­ly for the pass four months to ac­com­plish this feat as our in­vi­ta­tion to the league came in the month of Feb­ru­ary 2024. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we did not re­ceive strong sup­port from Cor­po­rate TT whom we con­tact­ed. Fem BA seeks help from the pub­lic and Cor­po­rate T&T to ac­cu­mu­late $100,000 for ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion, through faith and con­tin­u­ous bless­ings from God this amount is pos­si­ble to be raised.

“A Go­fundme ac­count has been opened for fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions which can be ac­cessed through our In­sta­gram page or you can con­tact Fem BA at 2815065 for bank­ing in­for­ma­tion to do­nate.”

At the JC Pro Clas­sic, the for­mat in­cludes each group play­ing three games, and se­lect­ed play­ers will par­tic­i­pate in the All-Star game.

Games are to be live streamed for coach­es and scouts to view games. Pic­tures and video Reels will be tak­en and pre­sent­ed to the team.