YMCA Set to Host Basketball Seminar

From 1989-2000, Haywoode Workman made his living playing on basketball's biggest stage. These days, he's doing everything he can to improve the game at its roots.

Workman is now a Tampa resident and an active National Basketball Association official after four years of refereeing in the Continental Basketball Association. Next Wednesday, he'll be sharing his thoughts and knowledge with a slew of coaches and officials from around the Tampa area.

"He'll be sharing a lot of his experiences and explaining how he went down the career path that he did," YMCA director of basketball operations Gary Brokaw said. "He'll be talking a lot to the officials of our leagues on how to be better officials and what the correct path to take to improve is."

The topic of discussion won't be all rules and regulations, however. Workman will also be fielding questions from coaches and referees on player management and communication between those on the sidelines and the referees.

"I'm sure he'll have something to say about handling coaches who like to get out of their seats a little too often," Brokaw said. "We've invited all the officials from the West Coast Officials Association who do a lot of the high school games as well as all of our summer and winter league games. I think the discussion will be good."

The Y will be doing another seminar later in June more focused on their own leagues in an attempt to improve their product.

"We feel like we can improve our product from coaching to officiating and what we offer the players," Brokaw said. "It's a triangle. If you improve the players, you do it through the coaches and the coaches do better in a good league. We want to give ourselves a more competitive realm for the players to play in so we're taking steps like this to make it better."

The seminar will take place at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call Brokaw at 813-224-9622.