Friday 14 February 2025

Alejandro Vaquera, FIBA – helping referees to prepare for REFEREE.PL CAMP

Dear friends,

This year for the first time at the camp we will have prepared exclusively for you a special training set from Alejandro Vaquera, who works for FIBA. For more details please read the below conversation with Alejandro.

1. Why are you not a referee? 🙂
This is a good question…. but probably is an advantage for my work with basketball referees. As I am not a referee and I do not really analyze the game from this point of view and I never talk to officials about the match. My only focus is to help them to be in the best shape possible and with almost 10 years of work I think I can understand the physical demands of the basketball referees very good in order to help them in the right direction.

2. How your adventure with basketball started and what do you do privately?
I got interested in basketball when I was 16 years old by coaching kids in my school. After I finished my degree in Sport Science and got the basketball coach degree III, I started as Assistant Coach and S&C Coach in a ACB Team, where I was working for 9 years. At the same time I supported Spanish National Team Program U18 and U20 during 6 years. Actually I have PhD in Sport Science and I teach in the University of Leon (Spain). 2 years ago when Carl Jungebrand joined FIBA Referee Department he called me, introduced me his idea about basketball officiating and from that day I started to work with FIBA.

3. What is your role in FIBA?
I work as a Referee Fitness Coordinator in FIBA. I am in charge of preparation and support for the referees to reach their best physical shape, so that they can have highest level of performance on the court. For me nowadays basketball referee needs to pay full attention to his physical condition level. To be fit is a MUST for a basketball referee.

4. How do you physically prepare FIBA referees before the season, finals or tournament?
From FIBA we try to help the referees during different tournaments and in the different phases of the season. Of course to have a good preparation before a tournament is necessary, but for us is also really important to work during the tournaments itself. For example we introduced the “good morning exercise”, which is a physical activation for the referees during game days and really helps to be physically prepared for the afternoon games.

5. What are the physical programs that you prepare? Please tell us something about it.
The training plans we prepare are covering many aspects, which are relevant for the referees to achieve their best performance on the court. First of all we prepare a Training Manual that helps everyone to understand all the different terminology and afterwards we prepare a specific Training Plan covering running, strength, flexibility, injury prevention and so on. We provide the best tools for the referees and make their training as easy as possible. Our goal in FIBA is to prepare proper material with the good quality to help referees from various levels. We will try in the next years to get to all the referees and to make this material accessible to everyone. 

6. You will prepare a set of material (program) for preparation for REFEREE.PL. Some more details please why and what it is going to be.
The idea for this Training Plan for REFEREE.PL camp is to help the referees to get there in the best possible shape to officiate and to enjoy the camp. When you go to a summer camp, the physical demands are really high, because it is not just the games you officiate or the training sessions that you have in the mornings, it is also all the different activities and lectures, which you attend. If you are well prepared physically for sure you will take much more from the camp and your experience will be extraordinary.

7. Where is your next big assignment (nomination) 🙂 ? Women Eurobasket, some summer tournament?
In FIBA we always cover all main competitions around the World. This summer we will start with the Eurobasket Women, WC U19 Men and Women, FIBA Americas, Eurobasket Men, FIBA Asia. It will be an intense summer for me and I am really happy to be involved with referees from all around the World and in different tournaments. I hope I can help all of them to be in great shape and have a good physical performance on the court. This will lead to create in young potential referees proper physical habits, which will help them to achieve their goals as basketball officials.

From Referee.pl: Material described by Alejandro will be available for the camp participants after logging in on our webpage – referee.pl.

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