The under 15 junior basketball team is competing in Guatemala in the "Junior Cocaba Under 15 Championship", but we found out things aren't going as planned. Matthew Smiling, coach of the team, called in today on a morning show saying that conditions are so terrible , they're thinking about pulling out of the competition. We found out more.
Voice of Andrew Smiling, Coach
"I am not a person that complain a lot, but these condition that we are in, we cannot handle this. It is what I expect, it is not the place that we were staying the last 3 times before in Guatemala, It is not the same village. They have all the teams in one big room. Costa Rica, Salvador, Belize, Guatemala everybody is in one big room. Last night we didn't sleep at all. Team Guatemala and Costa Rica make noise all night. The 2 quite one are us and Salvador. I talk to the Salvador coach this morning and he say that if they don't move his team; he will not play. I spoke to the president last night and he was out of the country, he had an emergency, so he had to leave the country. He will try to contact the embassy here to see if the embassy can help us. We definitely can't handle this for a whole week. The thing I want to ask is where is the rest of BBF Executive? Everything is just thrown down in the president hands. We have 15 delegates who went to Santo Domingo with 12 players, when I land here in Guatemala, they are asking questions that I cannot answer. I am calling on one of the BBF Executive for one of them to come out here because they are things that we cannot answer to. I am not on that level, I am just a coach. They have a fine on Belize because we did not have any referee, I don't know anything about those things. I told them that I cannot answer that because I don't know."
"All of us have a job, I have mine and I made a sacrifice. These tournaments are not glamorous for them so they don't want to be a part of this. The boys here are all from the country of Belize. We really need help."
Mose Hyde, Host WUB
"I don't know why the BBF has to be chastise that a trip has left off and they have not sent at least one representative to deal with the official side of the interest that we are out there defending. I don't understand how they could have drop the ball as badly as they have."
Voice of Andrew Smiling, Coach
"The president was suppose to come but he had an emergency and he had to left the country."
Mose Hyde
"But it's not a one man thing. The Executive of the BBF is not a one man thing and so it's terribly disappointing to know, to find out this morning that they have drop the ball the way they have."
The team's first game was scheduled for today against Mexico, but last time we checked the Mexican team had not shown up. The games are scheduled to last about a week.
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