Since 2018, the Wildcats Club has been in partnership with Nottingham Academy School, collaborating successfully to provide a full-time provision for 16-19-year-old Student-Athletes who wish to combine their basketball and academic journey. The Academy Wildcats programme has proven to be very successful over the last five years, having made a positive impact on the Student-Athletes that have come through the system, helping them to gain athletic scholarships in basketball both in the UK and USA as well as being successful in national competitions like the WEABL.

With a new service level agreement and a few exciting developments to come for the Academy Wildcats programme over the next few months, the Nottingham Wildcats Trust took the decision to restructure staffing for both the Performance and Participation Academy Provision in order to streamline the services provided and create posts that were focussed on responsibility in individual areas. This decision saw the separation of the CBL Head Coach role and Lead Participation role which were previously combined and it also saw the separation of the WEABL Head Coach role and WBBL Head Coach role.

With current Academy staff being offered the opportunity to interview for one of the newly created Academy roles, WEABL and WBBL Head Coach Kenrick Liburd decided applying for one of the Academy roles would not fit his professional plan moving forward. After conversations with the Wildcats Trust, Kenrick will be moving on from the Club to seek opportunities elsewhere for himself and his family.

“The Trust respect Kenrick’s decision. He has been a valued member of the Club for the last 5 years. We thank not only him but also his wife Tina and his daughters, Brailey and Elodie for what they have brought to the Club and we wish them all well in their next venture.” Chris Prior, Chairperson of the Nottingham Wildcats Trust.

“Kenrick has been with us since the beginning of this Academy venture. We would like to sincerely thank him for helping to set the tone for our programme and leaving it in a place that we can all be excited to progress forward from.” Academy Director, Siobhán Prior.

Further announcements about the Academy Wildcats programme will be made in the coming weeks.