QLD Coaches Invited to Emerging Coach Initiative
Meet Basketball QLD’s New Referee Administration Officer – Michael Lake
Michael Lake, joined the BQ team last year as our Technical Support Officer for the OwnUrGoal App. Since joining the team, his role has expanded and will now encompass refereeing as Referee Administration Officer.
We caught up with Lakey to find out exactly what his new role includes and what he will bring to this new role at Basketball Queensland.
How long have you been involved in Basketball?
In total, I’ve been involved now for over 25 years, primarily as a player coming through the junior ranks into senior competitions and more recently as a coach and now of course as an employee.
What did you do before coming to BQ?
My most recent role was with Goodstart Early Learning, working in a tech support role which helped my transition into supporting the OwnUrGoal platform here at Basketball Queensland. Prior to that, I have spent time studying, travelling and working across a number of industries such as hospitality, insurance and travel.
Who inspires you and why?
People who are able to live by following their passion – in recent years I have been lucky enough to do this myself as a coach which has opened up a number of opportunities for me and I am forever grateful for those.
What do you hope to achieve in your new role?
In all of my dealings, whether they be personal or professional, I first and foremost want to be someone that colleagues, clients and the basketball community can relate to and engage with as a person. I come into this role without a refereeing background so I am excited to learn more about this part of our game and try to work with our referees and other key stakeholders to make sure we are supporting their needs and the needs of our sport as much as possible.
How do you see your two roles working together?
First and foremost, the OwnUrGoal platform is such a powerful tool in terms of being able to manage groups of referees and communicate with them as a collective or individually while also being able to share key documents and videos to our members, which is something Madi had already started to do before departing the role. Additionally, as OwnUrGoal continues to grow and expand I am constantly engaging with a broader network of basketball people and with the increasing need to travel inter/intrastate I will be able to also incorporate my referee’s role and connect with more members of the community while looking for ways we may be able to improve or change our processes based on what I observe elsewhere.
Learn about Basketball Queensland’s Referee Development Programs – HERE
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