Manitoba Bison Men's basketball head coach and Basketball Manitoba Board Member, Kirby Schepp will be taking on an exciting new role at the international level, as he was named this past week as Egypt's U19 national team coach, as well as youth director. The role will not have an effect on Schepp's duties with the Bisons basketball program.
He was in discussion with a few Egyptian officials last spring about getting involved, as the country was looking into grassroots development, something Schepp has immense experience with. At the end of the summer, he went to Cairo and ran a bunch of coach and player clinics, where he met a number of higher-ups in the federation and talks started from there.
Schepp joins the fold with an immense international background, having previously spent 12 years with Team Canada's men's program in various coaching roles. Highlights include leading his country to a historic gold medal at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in 2017, while also being a member of Canada's bronze medal-winning team at the 2010 FIBA U17 Men's World Championship.
Schepp, who's coached more than 50 teams over the last 27 years, also won a gold medal with Canada's Junior National Team at the 2017 World Championships, and was the head coach for Canada's U16 national team in 2019, where the squad qualified for the FIBU U17 World Cup after a first-place finish in group B of the FIBA U16 Americas.
Additionally, in 2018, Schepp led Canada to a historic silver medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in his international head coaching debut. The medal was Canada's first in men's basketball at the games.
"[Egypt] has a tremendous federation. It's very well run and organized and it's an exciting group to be a part of," said Schepp.
"Their senior team has done very well in the last couple of years, and I'm just excited to do some of the same things we did with my time with our national team age group, bringing it from ground zero to being the number two-ranked age group team in the world when I left that program. Not that that was anything to do with me necessarily, but I was part of that growth and build-up."
One of Schepp's areas of focus will be on "connecting together the fabric of the development system." He would like to establish a certain level of play, while linking with the senior teams and youth development and developing relationships with the athletes at an early age to help bring them up.
"One thing I've found so far with the Egyptian people is their openness and their willingness to listen and take stuff in. It's tremendous. They just want to get better, and they're willing to take anything they can get. In the end, it's just basketball. There's lots of common language there."