National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) men’s handball team tactician Brian Mathews has been named the StarTimes/SJAK Coach of the Month of December 2022.
Mathews, who also doubles up as the NCPB ladies’ team head coach led the millers to the East and Central Africa Club championship title after defeating Tanzanian champions Ngome 24-18 in the title-deciding match played in Zanzibar last month.
For his exemplary performance, Mathews was awarded Ksh100,000, a StarTimes 55-inch smart television set and a personalized trophy thanks to title sponsor StarTimes Kenya.
Speaking while receiving the award at the NCPB headquarters, Mathews expressed his gratitude for the recognition.
“This award has come as a pleasant surprise to me. I understand I am only the second coach to win this award and that only gives me more motivation to better the handball sport in the country. I gathered much experience while trading my skills in Demark as a player, now it’s time for me to pass down the knowledge to the younger generation,” he said.
Recognize excellence
On his part, StarTimes Kenya’s head of Public Relations Alex Mwaura lauded the coach for his achievement while also praising the award initiative which seeks to recognize excellence as far as coaching is concerned.
He said, “Every time we see a team register impressive results, there must be the coach at the helm of it all. This is the reason we have decided to focus on them in collaboration with SJAK. We are more than confident that this award will act as a motivation to coaches in various sporting disciplines and as a result, we are likely to witness an improvement in teams’ performances in general.”
To win this award, Mathews closely pipped his counterpart Jack Ochieng who also led Nairobi Water queens to the ladies’ title in the women’s category of the same regional competition.
Other coaches who made it to the nomination list for their impressive performance in various assignments during the month of December include Kenya’s Tong- IL Moo-do team head coach Master Ibrahim Mchumba who led team Jasiri to retain the Mombasa Open Tong- IL Moo-do championship overall title, Meshack Senge of Strathmore Gladiators hockey team, Curtis Olago of KCB rugby team, KPA basketball coach Anthony Ojukwu and his counterpart Sadat Gaya who heads Thunder basketball team.
Mathews, a former Kenyan international player made the decision to transition to coaching in 2020 after a long stint of club competition in the Danish handball federation leagues.
