By Peter Della Penna
Ahmed
Jeddy, the Central West Region’s representative on the USACA board of
directors, has admitted to failures in the lack of progress for youth
and women’s cricket in his region, but says that it is a shared
responsibility among many leaders in his region to improve.
“I am the first person who will raise my hand and tell you that
basically we are not where we are supposed to be,” said Jeddy, in
response to some quotes in a recent DreamCricket article regarding the
Texas intercity competition that highlighted problems with youth
development. “People have come very hard on my region and they think
that it’s just the regional director’s responsibility to spearhead the
region. Just like any other organization, just like the game of
cricket, it is teamwork. One man cannot win you a game and one man
cannot run an organization either. Any organization or any sporting
event has to have a team effort.”
The Central West Region was the only region not to send a team to
the U-15 National Tournament in Newark, N.J., this past summer. It was
also one of four regions not to have a women’s team formed to play in
the Women’s National Tournament that took place in Cupertino, Calif.
“Our youth program is going nowhere. Our women’s program is going
nowhere. We have been trying our league presidents to nominate their
representatives who can work with the women’s coordinator in our
region,” said Jeddy. “We have not found enough womens players who are
willing to come forward. We are still waiting out of the four leagues,
three leagues to even designate their liaisons from their respective
leagues who can work with our women’s coordinator to kickstart a
program.”
Jeddy feels that part of the problem is at the league level. He
says administrators do not show interest in youth or women’s programs
and instead focus their time solely on men’s cricket. This makes it
harder for him to try to organize things from the various leagues to
come together at the regional level.
“For the leagues, their primary goal is to run the league. I have
been told that by many league presidents, ‘For us we have to first run
our leagues and then after that we’ll worry about USACA and USACA’s
programs’ and that is what is putting Central West down is this
negligent attitude,” said Jeddy. “If you don’t have people who want to
even communicate back to you nine out of 12 months of the year and they
only want to do things when there is a senior tournament, then how do
you expect that region to take that next step?"
"At
the end of the day, if you do not have a support cast, $20,000 plus
later and almost two and a half years later, I still find myself about
15 years behind compared to all the other regions who are far ahead of
us. That’s how much I have personally probably invested in cricket.”
“I think in my capacity, I’ve always been on the forefront, even
out of my personal funding and also with sponsorships, singlehandedly I
have driven a lot of programs. When we had the USACA Western Conference
in Houston two years ago, I singlehandedly went out and contributed a
lot of funds to stage the tournament. So between USACA, HCL (Houston
Cricket League) and myself, we were the sole financers of that
tournament.”
“Then comes the Under-19 team,” said Jeddy.
“Last year, I was singlehandedly responsible to take my Under-19
players to New York and that included their uniforms, that included
everything. I did not see no sponsors coming in at that time too. I did
not see no big names from Austin or any other place to help us out and
at that time the excuse that was given to me was, ‘Oh. Bad economy. We
cannot do anything.’ So when the bad economy was there, the bad economy
was here as well. So the point I am trying to make is that one man
cannot do anything. I can only ask.”
As for what it will take to get an U-15 team and a women’s team
together at the regional level, Jeddy again argued that he needs
cooperation and vision at the league level and that these things are
just as essential as funding if things are going to change.
“Since 2008, I personally have tried everything possible to get
the Under-15 team going and I could not find enough players, because
there have not been initiatives driven in the region by the youth
coordinators, the league presidents. A regional director can only tell
you the expectation and give you an idea of how to run the program,”
said Jeddy. “Am I proud of my region’s progress? No, absolutely not.
Can I make a difference? Yes, I want to make a difference, but I need
support. I need people to step up. I need the youth coordinator to step
up. I need the women’s coordinator to step up. I need the league
presidents to step up to help these other positions to do their job.”