Ipswich Basketball Club is excited to announce that it is enhancing its development opportunities for Coaches, with a plan to expand the programme to Team Managers in the future.
Club and Academy Head Coach Nick Drane has called upon his former coach and long term colleague and friend, Mark Lloyd, who will support the club in delivering an extensive coach education programme, with Mark leading various workshops every eight weeks with the clubs coaches in the capacity as ‘Coach Developer’.
Mark has been coaching in the national league since 1996. Primarily in Colchester, but also Hemel and Essex Rebels. Mark has also worked in the Basketball England Performance Pathway as RPC Head Coach and ex Performance Coaching Co-ordinator for the East. He is a UKCC Level 4 Basketball Coach and Coach Tutor / Mentor and has a Post Grad in Elite Coaching Practice.
Internationally, Mark is one of the most capped staff members in the history of British Basketball, working as a Team Manager at almost every level and has been involved on the Management & Coaching Staff of national teams for 23 years - Male, Female Senior & age group teams as well as Paralympic Wheelchair Men’s Team. He attended the Paralympic Games in Athens 2004 (Bronze Medal), Paralympic World Cup 2005 (Gold Medal) & European Championships 2006 (Silver Medal). Mark managed the GB Men’s Team at Eurobasket 2013, England Men at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and GB Women at Eurobasket 2019.
Mark is working with Basketball England & UK Coaching as a Coach Developer, with Ipswich Basketball Club becoming one of the first that is expected to be many high performing National League programmes in the East Region, and beyond, that will be tapping into Lloyd’s development programme.
“This is an exciting development for the coaching programme here at Ipswich. We are incredibly proud of the pathway we offer not only our players but our coaches, but we are getting bigger every year so it is important that we continue to develop and grow what we are doing and working with Mark will be a huge addition to what we do. I know I need to improve and there is nobody better than Mark to help us all do that” Said Head Coach Nick Drane.
Mark Lloyd added “I’m so excited to be working with Nick and all the coaches at Ipswich Basketball Club. Their amazing player pathway is there for all to see in terms of developing players through to international level - It’s fantastic to now be helping develop the coaching infrastructure and career pathway to run alongside it”.
Ipswich will be delivering a series of workshops every six to eight weeks. Keep an eye on the clubs website social media platforms for updates on the new programme.