hooptrition

[hooptrition]

A tale of turmoil and two stars

The crowd at the National Convention Centre last night was palpably itching to assist their team to park the previous two days of unexpected turmoil. And as if sensing that, the Capitals responded with a highly energised start, buzzing ball pressure and a virtuoso performance from their marquee act to rain one hundred points on an unfortunate Spirit team.

Despite the Spirit having no part to play in the controversy that saw the Capitals lose their head coach for the better part of the next month, they arrived in town in the single worst scheduling spot of the season to face an opponent intent on sending a message of team solidarity to the league.

The bright start by the home team was cued by act one of the unveiling of new recruit Brittany Sykes. She piled on a dozen points in the first quarter with a dazzling array of smooth finishes and forced a number of the eight turnovers that spewed from a spluttering Spirt offence.

Skyes continued to show off her scoring jets in the second stanza and the sight of her loping horizontal and lateral movement, often with the ball appearing not to be dribbled but to be hovering along side her, brought the types of oohs and aahs from the crowd that were a vivid reminder of the recently elusive joys of attending live sport.

She continued her tour de force in the second half, after taking the only sixty five seconds of rest she would see all evening, but changed gears to drop a series of dime passes to jackrabbit sixth-woman Jade Melbourne on coast to coast excursions past temporarily confused Spirit defenders.

Whilst Sykes was putting forth her own introductory MVP show, the Spirit offence was mostly unable to keep pace, apart from positionless youngster Anneli Maley.

Rebounding has been Maley’s calling card through her first three years in the league and sitting close under the basket it quickly became apparent just what a unique skill set she possesses for this endeavour.

Each and every time a rebounding opportunity would loom, if you averted your gaze from the ball, you could spy Maley snaking her way towards the contest and assessing her opposition. Once set, it’s then a mixture of a startlingly quick elevation from the floor, the fearlessness to grasp the ball with both hands whilst airborne like nothing else in the world matters for that instant and a doggedness to rip the rock away away from seemingly bigger and better suited players.

Anyway, whilst going about her core work and keeping the Spirt within hailing distance of the Capitals, something strange happened in the last period for Maley as she entered the Sykes-zone of can’t miss and began to pour in points from all parts. Her nineteen last quarter points featured the break out of an almost playground back and forth scoring challenge with Sykes that Maley ended with back-to-back triples that barely moved the net.

Sykes did her best to answer however in the end had to cede the individual scoring mantle on the evening. But importantly, not the contest.

For the Capitals there’s likely to be some flak flying for a while yet with a Sydney Flames double looming in the New Year but with Kelsey Griffin due back, the playing roster is looking well-rounded. The Spirit has some role tinkering to perform based on this game but it will be a surprise if Maley is not a can’t miss piece of the Opals World Cup campaign in 2022, providing a living demonstration that there is no single physical template for great.

[hooptrition]

Patty Mills brings it back home

“Who would've thought?” The text message on her phone finished with four words that sent Rebecca Kelley wandering off down a memory trail that dated back to the year 2000.

As assistant coach for the Canberra Under 14 boys team in that year, she had been part of the team's season that culminated with a trip to Townsville in far north Queensland for the Australian Club Championships. And it was her mum Di, having been that team's manager, who was now texting the question that had to be asked, as the baby of that long forgotten team, Patty Mills, prepared to return home with the NBA Championship trophy.

In all the wonderful hoopla that accompanied Patty's return to Canberra, including the awarding of the Keys to the City, the story behind the story and the lessons it may hold still lies in wait, to hopefully be applied to and appreciated by following generations of youngsters and their parents.

Kelley, now a deputy director in Canberra's governmental machine and a mum to her own growing family, remembers a tiny youngster who was already moving to a different beat.

“He was the first kid I'd ever seen wearing headphones as he wandered around and naturally I had to ask him just what he was listening to. He gave me a listen and I have to say that the rap I heard from Eminem really wasn't my thing and in fact wasn't really something that most kids in Canberra were even aware existed at that time,” she explained.

Despite being the youngest and smallest and not having much of playing role at that national tournament, Patty was the central team motivator and energy creator for the group, revealing for the first time possibly the origins of his world famous towel waving antics years later in San Antonio for the Spurs.

“On the team bus he'd be standing up, singing and carrying on and more often than not would have the whole team standing up rapping and dancing along. Here was the baby of the team who wasn't playing much and yet he had a unique rapport with all the kids, on the bench he was constantly animated and vocal and at training he was going the whole time.

“You wouldn't have thought back then he was a kid going places. He was good but he wasn't outstanding, but who knew what was ahead?”

Kelley's last honest reflection is part of a larger question that has produced an incalculable amount of literature and theorising about just what is talent, whether it's mostly down to nature or nurture and what exactly are the things we should be looking for that might indicate a tiny 11 year-old might one day scale the basketball world?

By the next year Patty had started to blossom on the court and at an Under 14 tournament hosted by key regional rivals the Illawarra Hawks, he began a rivalry with Hawks star forward Daniel Jackson that would track all the way to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and Australian Junior teams.

Brad Luhrs who has a been a seemingly constant figure over the past fifteen years in Canberra junior basketball was Patty's coach at that event for the first time.

“You could tell he was a clear standout at that level then,” Luhrs said, “as was Jackson for Illawarra, though he was way taller and bigger.”

“Patty was quick and he had great ball handling skills but if you'd asked me then, I would have thought the other kids would eventually catch up or that he'd slow down.”

Within a couple of years Patty was the point guard general for Canberra's Under 16 State team and had begun to draw the interest of national talent identification coaches who were part of the now disbanded Intensive Training Centre (ITC) across the country.

Naturally Patty had also attracted the attention of other sports, and as well as setting and still holding almost every junior record at Woden Little Athletics club, he dabbled in Australian Rules football alongside his basketball.

Jason Denley was Patty's coach for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) team that contested the Under 16 National Championships in 2003, Patty still being 14 at the time due to his very unGladwellian August birthdate.

“He was small, incredibly fast and utterly fearless and for a kid with such athletic talent and I was most surprised by his lack of ego,” Denley said. “He never complained to referees and somehow he seemed to be someone that his teammates and opponents both admired for the endless energy and passion he brought to every play.”

ESPN's Sports columnist Bill Simmons has long held a view that every successful franchise needs a team “Chemist” to keep everyone happy and connected and along those exact lines Patty was continuing to expand his role as the supreme on and off court motivator.

“There was a group in our large boys and girls ITC training sessions that Patty used to be one of the leaders of, and in the warm up stretching they would launch into singing that they had obviously choreographed some time before,” Luhrs remembered.

“Amazingly James Taylor's 'How sweet it is to be loved by you' is the one that sticks in my head and to hear 14 and 15 year old boys harmonising and chiming in at coordinated spots at the top of their voices might have been something other coaches wouldn't have tolerated. Somehow though that sort of comfortability as a group and self-confidence was their calling card and at the end of the day how can you not want that?”

An invitation to his first Australian Junior Camp followed soon after 2003's Under 16 Nationals and as that camp stretched across an age range from 14 to 17 Patty was once more the smallest and youngest fish in a pond that was becoming increasingly concentrated.

At the camp Patty was one of the two standouts guard prospects along with Victoria's Scott Pendlebury, who would famously eventually choose Australian rules football over basketball thus clearing the way for Patty to start on scholarship at the AIS.

Brian Goorjian was at that time the new Australian Boomers Head Coach following on from the team's disastrous qualifying loss to New Zealand that had scuttled 2002's World Championship plans and he was front and centre at that camp to see what the next generation had in store for the program.

“Within the first half hour of Goorjian arriving on the floor there was one kid that he used exclusively to demonstrate every defensive and offensive drill,” Denley recalled.

“Paaaatty get out here, delivered in a rolling Californian twang, was pretty much the chorus for the camp and despite being so young, Patty was clearly already some sort of leader by the dint of his sheer energy and joy for each task and endless clapping and hollering for anyone and anything he or the group came across.”

Interestingly, at the same time Goorjian was possibly signalling that even at that early stage Patty was going to be part of his national team plans (Patty would eventually find his way to the Beijing in 2008), an entirely different version of Aron Baynes to that which played a part in this year's Spurs triumph alongside Patty was lumbering through drills at the camp.

Shortly after that camp Patty moved in to the AIS on a full time basis but still maintained his role as the spiritual leader of the ACT junior teams he continued to play for at Junior National championships.

“My overriding memory is of his infectious energy, the talk and support that just never waned,” Luhrs recalled from his later time as ACT Under 18s Head Coach. “And this was with him as the star of the team and it was obvious that this wasn't just something he discovered when he was sitting on the bench. It was part of him.”

At the AIS Patty bought all his familiar calling cards into play as then Men's Assistant Coach Paul Gorris confirmed.

“You'd watch him play and he was super quick and talented but when you think back then about the idea of the NBA you never could have imagined it,” he said.

“I was lucky enough to also be coaching the ACT Under 20 team back then and the thing that sticks with me is just how humble he was around the group. He was our big ticket item, with everything run around him and all his team-mates knew that, yet he was always mindful of involving them. He was playing with his mates he'd been with since they were 11 or 12 and they were quite happy to defer to him as needed, but somehow he was able to keep things so that it was never about him.”

The all singing and dancing Patty was still very much in evidence in those team and Gorris' favourite memory of those teams inevitably gravitates back to the off-court feel of the group Patty inspired.

“Back the there was an unwritten rule that I'd drive the 12-seater van to the stadium for each game and everyone would sing along to whatever sort of weird music the team had selected to prepare with. Naturally it was Patty and his cousin, Luke Currie-Richardson, (now not surprisingly a dancer with the world famous Bangarra Indigenous company) who would be leading the chorus up the front of the van. Coming into Ballarat stadium with the whole bus rocking along in full voice is something I never grow tired of remembering.”

For an outsider looking in, the overriding question would have be to just how did this diminutive energiser bunny with super quicks, a solid skill package, a streaky shooting stroke (the recent improvement in which is story all of its own a certain Mr Engelland may be able to explain more fully) and seemingly unquenchable faith in the power of positive encouragement make it in arguably the world's single most challenging athletic league?

Rebecca Kelley recalled running into Patty on occasions around the AIS years after her involvement with the Under 14s.

“He was always one of those people you have touch points with and although my involvement with his basketball career was like a grain of sand on the beach, he's always remembered me and is always quick with the 'G'day Rebecca!' and a chat. I guess it's part of his personality, he's a nice guy and he's not just going to be a great athlete, he's going to be a leader in his own way like the Cathy Freeman of this generation.”

Gorris has been in regular touch with Patty since he first left for St Mary's College in 2007 and commented how much he hasn't changed despite the time away and the constant spotlight.

“He's matured and grown up a little bit from worldly experience but deep down it's still, the same Pat, still very much about the family, still very much about everyone else.” he said.

In the back end of 2011 during the NBA lockout Patty played nine games for the Melbourne Tigers before a forgettable stint in China and his rescue by the Spurs early in 2012. He was four or five in line on San Antonio's guard depth rotation then yet something about him and his approach to that situation or challenge separated him. To watch Greg Popovich's (San Antonio's Head Coach) grizzly visage turn sunny side up every time Patty and his side line support antics were mentioned in interviews during ensuing years is in itself truly amazing.

Is it possible that the natural talent of selflessness and never-ending positive energy is actually way more powerful and valuable than any analyst can put a finger on? Are the tendencies Patty displayed way back in 2000 as a 12 year-old in Townsville the sort of things talent identifiers should be more heavily factoring in?

Are team “Chemists” as Simmons like to call them, a species all to themselves that someone should be tracking or nurturing?

Fittingly Daniel Jackson, Patty's regional rival from those heady junior days has now migrated to Canberra as one of the centre-pieces of the city's semi-professional team, and trying to size up exactly how Patty has been able to do what he's done thus far, is maybe best left to him.

“I've known him since he was 12 and never heard anyone say anything but what a great guy he is...not that he's a nice enough guy or a good guy, but a great guy.” he offered, “and when that's the case there's no doubt it's easier to succeed as everyone in your team is in your corner and pulling for you to be good.”

[hooptrition]

Cambage brings it at home

The final game of Round 6 of the WNBL had it all today; a very healthy home crowd, a scoring blitz from one of the league’s star recruits and, most importantly for the home fans, a 77-74 victory for Melbourne over fellow contenders Adelaide. 

Whilst the focus of this contest will naturally revolve around the almost impossibly efficient 44 point, 12 rebound performance by Boomers centre Liz Cambage, what are the possible takeaways for the rest of the league? 

The very first possession of the game was a portent of what was to follow as Cambage sealed deep at the rim and finished whilst being fouled by Ruth Hamblin. 

What looked to be Adelaide’s opening strategy with Cambage appeared on her next touch with a quick double team arriving.  However, this could never be organised quickly enough throughout most of the first half and a series of catch and turn shots and drop steps kept adding to her tally. 

After a sweet shooting return from injury in Sydney the night before, Jenna O’Hea started the same way in this one, hitting three of her four attempts in the first period despite picking up her second foul early on. 

The Lightning tried some 1-3-1 zone with their three guard line-up later in the first period but O’Hea’s hypnotic ball fakes cued some slick team passing that mostly still finished with Cambage isolated inside. 

The Lightning hung tough and awaited for the storm to abate throughout the first fifteen minutes of game time, which was pretty much all they could do. 

When Cambage exited (O’Hea was already on the bench resting) with about four minutes to go to half time things looked quite settled with the Boomers leading 36-28. 

A few shaky possessions later and Coach Molloy was calling for time and the reintroduction of O’Hea as the Lightning’s press into a 2-3 zone seemed to confuse Melbourne’s mainly bench line-up. 

Cambage followed O’Hea back to the floor just before the half time interval and piled on a couple of late hoops to stretch the lead back to 42-32 at that break. 

The first 8 minutes of the third quarter are likely to make the most interesting watching for upcoming Melbourne opponents. During that stretch the Boomers had 14 possessions, 10 of which finished with neither O’Hea nor Cambage. 

The result of those 10 was 3 turnovers, 6 missed shots and just a single make from Kalani Purcell (off a Cambage assist.) 

Not surprisingly, the Lightning crept back to tie things up during this stretch with a barrage of free throw attempts and some quick cuts and finishes from Ruth Hamblin proving their major scoring sources. 

The Lightning stuck mostly with a few types of zone in the last quarter and got enough offence from Natalie Novosel  and youngsters Nicole Seekamp and Lauren Nicholson to win most games. 

The difference here was that O’Hea now shifted back to primary ball handling duties for the entire stretch run and Cambage played almost exclusively from the high post, to make fronting or double teaming more problematic for the visitors. 

Between them, the two Opals stars had the first 12 points to vault the Boomers back to a lead they would not relinquish to the finish. 

Cambage rolled out a never ending series of spins, drop steps and soft touch finishes that for good measure were iced with a few mid range swishes. In this form and with this flow of touches, things get very difficult indeed for any WNBL opponents. 

O’Hea simply did everything her team needed to do to win, scoring enough to keep the defence honest, handling on every trip and not turning it over once for the entire period. 

So what would a team need to add to the grit and defensive change-ups that the Lightning so effectively produced today? 

O’Hea and Cambage are shooting the ball at 52 and 59% respectively for the season to date, whilst the bench unit (which went 9 of 34 in this contest) is shooting at a combined 37% clip for the year (and that dips sharply if you exclude Brittany Smart’s 49% number). 

In games where Cambage hits the midrange jumper like she did today, there’s probably no real relief but mixing up defensive alignments, flashing and slashing at the rim protection (as Novosel and Hamblin briefly did to make helping a constant battle) and somehow keeping the ball out of O’Hea’s hands for stretches, are some of the clues Chris Lucas’ group provided. 

The ladder says the Boomers are third best but with Cambage doing just some of what she did today and O’Hea rolling back into full fitness and touch, it’s hard to see who else has a greater percentage chance of taking the title at this stage of the season. 

[hooptrition]

Banana Huj in Alassio

It’s pretty common knowledge amongst David Attenborough types that Ursus Arctos (the brown bear) is rarely, if ever, found in Northern Italy or France. 

This may go some way to explaining the general excitement that Grumpy Old Bears’ Tour XII generated in the sleepy seaside town of Alassio this autumn. 

The Alassio Masters had long been mentioned in dispatches as being part of a mystical European circuit of masters’ events that rarely saw entrants from below the equator. 

However, after a quick injection of Scandinavian know-how, a new look Bears team assembled for the four-day adventure. 

The owner was present for his twelfth tour, along with mainstays T Bone, The Doctor and your correspondent. From there things took a newish turn with the Arkitekt earning his second injury-ravaged cap as coach alongside four GOB rookies. 

Professor Matematiker arrived with a family connection via his brother’s spectacular contribution years before in Dublin, the Swedish Glove was selected for his Gary Paton like career at Köping, Aussie Kosta was plucked from the GOB’s rooftop roster and the youthful Bloodhound rounded things out, both for his decorated resume and ability to sniff out the slightest hint of a potential rendezvous from extraordinary distances. 

The first wave arrived in the gorgeous seaside town on Wednesday afternoon and managed to catch the last of the evening sun on the beach, with the reminder straggling in during the evening meal. 

Thursday, after a relaxed seaside recovery session and the first of many trips to Bar Lido for lunch, was opening night for the tournament. 

Whilst the game itself should have been front and centre, for most seasoned GOBs the extraordinary stuff started pre-game when the owner was late to the bus for the first time in living memory. 

Excuses were proffered, including the possibility of an early tally adjustment attempt from the doctor, but it was in many ways simply a reminder of life’s endless possibilities. 

T Bone had spent a good deal of his pre-trip training in search of a new catch-cry and Central Basket’s Banana Huj (pronounced Hoi.) was quickly offered and adopted.  Unfortunately he’d barely gotten the first syllable out against our Croatian opponents before his attempted hook was marked return to sender and he tumbled to the pine in sympathy. 

The game was a wake up call for a weary squad and Croatia punished our rooftop level defence to streak away to a big lead at the half. 

The second half was a much better indication of things to come as the Bloodhound gave his best point guard imitation on a coast-to-coast foray that finished with a crowd pleasing thrown-down.  The margin stabilized and even shrunk but it finished 59-41 to the Adriatic visitors, with Bone, Doctor and the Glove mired on the dreaded early tour donut. 

Thursday night was party night at the aptly named Liquid Bar and after initially being disoriented at being the first to arrive (Mediterranean resort time not having been fully adjusted to) the Bears quickly rerouted to a nearby steak restaurant. 

During the ensuing cacophony, the food and wine flowed freely. 

Somewhere during the Sardinian Jagermeister finale, the Arkitekt recounted his memory of a 4-minute black out cameo at end of Georgia High School State finals in 1978. 

Subsequent archival scouring for video of the event has proved fruitless and the game and its participants now exist only in a few lines of typography and the minds of those who were part of it. 

Back to Liquid though, and the place was by now pumping. 

The Danish men and women, who may or may not have been called the Grumpy Old Beers despite being sponsored by a fertility clinic, led the charge and the crowd organically spilled out into the surrounding courtyard to dissect the day’s activities and life in general. 

The Bloodhound found a way to rename T Bone as Bones shortly before commencing a strange fetish with the Croatian Men’s team from our earlier game. 

The Doctor finished the evening, for those not boarding the Croatian singing troupe, by calmly informing everyone that he had deduced with 90% certainty the dating preference of one of the day’s game referees. 

Day two was a double and somehow the Bears defied the opening night’s party-lag effect to get over the top (56-43) of last year’s finalists, Kady 73 from Holland, in the 9:30 am affair.

Highlights were widespread, the Glove sneaking off his donut and causing mayhem defensively, Professor Matematiker loosening the previously tight grip on his shot hunting to great effect, the Owner metronoming with gay abandon from midrange and the Bloodhound’s late night swim with the Danes doing nothing to slow him down

Lunch was beachside at the Lido again and a mild panic regarding the Doctor’s indispensable shoehorn was resolved with an able substitute provided by the hotel. 

Exactly why the front desk would have a spare shoe horn or why anyone would find it impossible to get his foot in and out of a pair of new Nike sneakers without a plastic baton were questions that a Mulder or Scully type may one day find worthy of further investigation. 

Thankfully the early evening game also went to plan with a 53-30 win over Hamburg. Bone and the Doctor shed their donut stink in the process and the group eschewed the showers for traditional GOB refreshment at the Lido. 

After a quick turnaround it was off to Osteria Mezzaluna for a typically late European dinner. The room had a great vibe, the food was superb and two elderly gentlemen with an array of acoustic instruments added seamlessly to the whole thing. 

The Owner became entranced by the live music and was soon enthusiastically expressing his desire for a GOB theme song and suggesting that Australian rappers  ‘Bliss n Esso’ would be only too willing to assist in the project. 

This was unfortunately the cue for a series of draft verses to be road tested by the Bears and before we knew it, the staff was packing up politely around us. 

The lure of Liquid was overwhelming again and the home-made Limoncello (and its full brother Grappa) soon ensured that the usual suspects were the only ones left to battle the festivities with the Danes, Irish, English, Dutch and Estonians. 

T Bone almost got out of the clutches of Liquid’s trance and had actually made it to the pathway to the beach when he wavered, asked “what’s that Latvian girl’s name?” and was promptly sucked back into the vortex. 

The next morning the Doctor and the Glove stayed true to their Swedish routine and were breaking down the breakfast room door on the dot of 8, despite the Doctor having been inadvertently left behind by the first escapees from Liquid as he blended in amongst his Estonian brethren. 

Game number four against Torino would it seemed, decide the Bears finals fate and we displayed all the requisite lethargy of team-wide excess to trail 38-30 at the half. 

The second stanza was a thing of beauty however and it finished a 63-48 win for the Bears.

Professor Matematiker was at his incendiary best to lead the charge along with the irrepressible Bloodhound and a powerhouse showing from Aussie Kosta. 

Lunch was of course outdoors at the Lido and T Bone attempted the world’s first simultaneous lunch and physiotherapy mix, which in the end did nothing but hopelessly confuse all the staff. 

After some consultation with the organizers and their abacus, we were GOBed into the semis with our 3-1 record. 

But game 5 in three days was to be a tall order. 

We eventually fell 42-31 to an Alassio team that played to their strengths and shot the lights out early.   

For whatever reason, the GOB radar couldn’t be located at all in what was still a high quality affair. 

The owner then made the right decision to call the next day’s Bronze Medal game a draw in the same way Coach Pop would cite excessive workload for Manu and Tony and omit them from the national television game. 

Free from the necessity to hit the court again, the final evening meal was a wonderful affair. T Bone became the agua guy and then was moved to retitle himself grappa guy and the staff at Il Barrante was more than accommodating to our every need. 

The group then ventured off to the final night party and, with your correspondent showing signs of wear and tear, the reporting of what actually transpired there is sketchy at best. 

Maybe that’s for the best though. 

Fittingly the next morning, as the early departures said their goodbyes to the majority, who were heading for lunch in Nice, Bone made a familiar last-ditch pitch to the hotel receptionist.

It is indeed good to be a GOB…

[hooptrition]

The Auckland Experience

“I realize that it’s been said many times and in many ways but it’s rare to have such a group of old buggers that connect the way we do after all these years whether we see each other weekly on the court or occasionally to live like a GOB.”  - Anonymous 

It’s said that Australians generally treat New Zealand like the undiscovered gem in their own back yard. 

Thus it was somewhat unsurprising that eight years after the Grumpy Old Bears world odyssey began, the crew assembled in Auckland harbor (yes literally on the water) to defend the World title so expertly captured four years earlier in Torino. 

The familiar faces were mostly all on deck for the operation; The Owner, Ballarat Pau, Coach K, The Doctor, T Bone, The Californian Wine Mogul, Big Wave Don, The Sri Lankan Assassin and your correspondent. Added to that mix was Disco Steve, a GOB debutante plucked from the draft for his unique blend of silky skills on and off the floor. 

Opening night featured a trip to the Botswana Butcher to sample some of the protein offerings that the Kiwis have become so famous for and it wasn’t long before the hormone overload from the exquisite beef and lamb was working its magic. 

Despite being on tour as an age discrimination case waiting to happen and having guest appearances lined up for an anti-GOB Auckland outfit, the Assassin was off and running after a chance meeting at a traffic intersection en route back from our opening visit to Auckland Jurassic. 

Details of what happened over the next few hours at the very reputable Donny Doolan’s establishment are sketchy at best, with only cub reporter Bone in attendance. 

Trying to piece together incoherent statements such as: “he was dancing and gyrating in a way I’d never seen before” and “I was seriously concerned for him” is probably futile and suffice to say that Sri Lanka’s answer to Vincent Vega had thrown the gauntlet down for the trip. 

The games were quickly upon us and the first pool encounter was a comfortable-enough win over the Australian Hyenas 53-26.  Disco fitted in seamlessly to the minimally structured schemes, a wayward hook from Bone brought back memories of the massage oil incident and the Wine Mogul rolled back the clock for his patented ‘stop on a dime’ pull up. 

Astonishingly, the organisers had made a commitment to capture every game on video for posterity and soon the highlights were readily available as a tool for remembering and forgetting. 

The creative genius behind the owner had, in her always-appropriate way, hit just the right notes with the accommodation. 

The Old Testament Bears had the distinction of being housed dockside in Auckland harbor on the superbly appointed vessel the Templar, whilst the newer converts took their rest in nearby dry land luxury. 

The event itself was housed in and around the harbor just a short stroll from both places. 

Highlights included Fireworks smokehouse brisket burgers, where Pau recycled his request for Dickins cider to more than one unsuspecting teammate; the grey goose incident on the top deck that cascaded into a chance meeting with some Canadian footballers and Tasmanian netballers in Donny Doolan’s and left Big Wave in a parlous state the next morning; Jemma and Dave’s constant attention and beverage provision and a wondrous day trip to nearby Waiheke Island and Cable Bay Vineyards restaurant. 

The dialogue was as always, the seasoning for the tour and astute observations, long forgotten anecdotes and more recent war stories tied the days together. 

In truth, some of the best stuff just melted into the group dynamic, never to be seen again but some fragments are still front and centre: 

"The bigger the boat the more they pass to you" Coach K at the infamous top deck dinner. 

The very jarring observation of one of our fist visitors to the boat: "He’s handsome and has no depth…did I say that out loud?" 

The widespread adoption of George Constanza’s motto: "It's not a lie if you believe it" 

Game two came and went with T-Bone ticking New Zealand off the hook list in a 71-43 win over Hungarian Dream catchers. 

The Prawn juice aperitif samples our opponents provided are undoubtedly adorning home bars across the globe in preparation for the type of catastrophic world happening that would warrant its consumption.

Dinner at ‘Soul’ that night was another fantastic affair and flowed into a few customary refreshments, again just a stone’s throw from the Templar. 

Somewhere in the midst of this period Coach K got to detailing his missing tooth story and the differing approaches when in conversation with fellow GOBs and other competitors, a role reversal in traditional men’s entertainment clubs was theorized and  “Juri Duty” was officially welcomed into the language. 

Around this time Coach K headed back across the ditch for the Shire’s Coachella equivalent, the panorama of female teams from across the globe continued to float by and the rookie made a mockery of the notion that he was in any way lacking experience. 

The days had a wonderful rhythm…from sundrenched breakfast deck, to makeshift office, to NBA playoffs in the main lounge and then hoops and GOB recovery regimes. 

Old foes the Megabucks were next on the slate. 

The 65-41 win was relatively unspectacular save for Coach K seeing his average drop to 9 despite being 2000 miles away. Bone took the 100% award with a rolling hook on transition, Disco found some of his dance-floor mojo on the pine, the Doctor unceremoniously hacked Murray with his throat and/or teeth in a manoeuvre that was quickly coined the gooseneck foul and Pau did what Pau does in his role as the team’s “Big Fundamental”. 

Our young female referee was reduced to supportive astonishment at some of the guesses from her theoretically more senior partner but we soon adjourned to a dinner of chicken ribs and refreshments. 

The next game was an early morning affair against Brasil that inevitably got rather messy. Big Wave’s rebounding festival and an ultimately flawed flirtation with flawless shooting from Bone were the main takeaways from a 50-30 win. A donut watch was however enacted for the Wine Mogul until deep inside the last two minutes whilst, almost unnoticed, the owner continued to metronome it in from midrange. 

The aforementioned Cable Bay jaunt that day was perhaps most easily summed up by something Disco was overheard telling a friend back home at the winery restaurant: "I'm going to send you some photos and you won't believe how I'm rollin’." 

Philosophical questions inevitably find their way into the week and after reminding the team of the latest research updates on his prostate awareness theory, the Doctor then regaled us with tales of long forgotten Estonian school days. In a sense it’s no surprise that a priest would struggle to answer the young Doctor’s  "How many millimetres between heaven and hell?" query. The fact that the priest ultimately replied that people who ask questions like that go to hell speaks for itself. 

Back at the smoke house the next day, the owner dropped one of the standalone gems he’s become famous for: "There is no such thing as a good turnover." 

On Thursday the running hook reappeared in a 62-43 win over local team Basketball Times. Their chatty point guard was a nuisance in every sense but Big Wave was unguardable early on and the result was never in doubt. The Doctor missed his patented crayfish claw shot but made a thunderous baseline drive and finish in traffic that shocked pretty much the whole gym and the Bears were now 5-0 with co-coaches K and The Assassin managing minutes for Kazan.   

Kazan is a city in southwest Russia, on the banks of the Volga and Kazanka rivers. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, a semi-autonomous region, it's known for the centuries-old Kazan Kremlin, a fortified citadel containing museums and sacred artifacts…and a gnarly old hoops culture. 

The final against their familiar front line of very hefty moving screen setters and impossibly craft silver fox guards was a beauty. 

History will record that the Russians eventually got the money 60-54 in overtime but it was a knock ‘em down slugfest to the very end. Threes that might have sealed it, rimmed in and out as tantalizingly as a foiled 3 am casino rendezvous but Big Wave’s foul out was the final nail. 

Your correspondent took one in the ribs for the team in a vain attempt to either secure a loose ball or take out their astonishing scorer (Number 10) and only finished up searching for pain relief answers deep inside the doctor’s makeshift pharmacy bag.

It was fitting that one of Russians told T Bone they were coming to the Gold Coast even though he couldn't speak a lick of English. Maybe he meant coasting to gold??? 

Big Wave fittingly carried the flag for the weary GOBs on the last night at Jurassic for the real closing ceremony. 

On Sunday morning it was time to go when the Wine Mogul decided not to have eggs, the Doctor informed us he was going on the wagon and no NBA finals games were scheduled. 

The Wine Mogul got two pills from T Bone (now working on a pharmaceutical startup in opposition to the doctor) and prepared to position himself near the boarding gate to avoid a repeat of the “Sydney Incident”. 

The dispersal was underway. 

Rumblings for Alassio are strong as this piece goes to print and there’s possibly no stronger recommendation for that trip than Bone’s summation of a post Auckland GOB lunch in Sydney recently: 

“Awesome. Ended up late with Disco and a bunch of guys I didn’t know drinking free cocktails in a bar I can’t remember going to. Just your typical GOB’s outing.”

[hooptrition]

Bears add Vancouver to the list

Some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago the glaciers of the ice age gave way and the First Nations appeared in what’s now known as Vancouver. 

Incredibly, in 1792 English Captain George Vancouver spent just a single day on the site yet somehow got the inside track on future naming rights. 

224 years later the Grumpy Old Bears’ caravan rolled into town to add their own little slice of worldliness to the Western Canadian pastiche. 

The old world charm of the midtown Rosewood Hotel was GOB headquarters for the inaugural American Masters and as mystically as ever the various playing pieces wafted in: Coach K, Ballarat Pau, T Bone, the owner, Big Wave Don, the professor, the doctor, Sandy Point Kenny, the Californian wine mogul and your trusty correspondent. 

There was a one-day window ahead of the opening game and the team took advantage to take a damaging opening day salvo to their bow at Steamworks in Gastown. 

The combination of jetlag and the Gastown extravaganza was apparent the next day as the Bears lumbered to a messy 61-44 win over the Canadian Wolves at a humidicrib-like UBC facility. 

Luckily for some, the Ballet was in town for the week and Coach K and Pau headed off for their opening dose of culture. Bone had been penciled in to accompany the delegation but offered an air-ball type excuse of having fallen asleep and missed the rendezvous. Inevitably, as Coach K and Pau explained the insights they had gleaned from the evening, Bone’s inner spring was seen visibly tightening for the next available opportunity to take in the show.

There was also talk around the city that the Bears tapped into, of the gymnastics having a run of shows in town, but apparently that was pushed back to a future timeslot. 

Unbeknownst to the group, the next day’s game against the Canadian Zen Masterz would be a forerunner to the eventual finals encounter.

The game was a physical affair from the outset and with Pau being routinely manhandled inside but unable to earn any charity stripe love, the Bears eventually fell behind by double digits.

Coach K then took a blow to the head that resulted in an innovative mummy-type bandage job that was unfortunately captured by a stray photographer. 

The wine mogul was the designated substitute for the ensuing free throws Coach K had earned. However, having not had an opportunity to go through his time-honoured pre-game-entry visualization routine, he promptly air mailed the first to a postcode well short of the rim and then barely avoided the famed “double air swing” by grazing front iron with the second. 

When the contest resumed, Big Wave soon accumulated his fourth foul and it was all looking distinctly pear-shaped. Yet somehow, Coach K retuned and dragged things back to just a single shot deficit inside the last minute. 

There was some ensuing panic in the final possessions but the locals eventually snuck home 47-43 in what was simply a quality contest. 

It was also opening ceremony night in Vancouver and Jack Poole Plaza down on the city’s waterfront was awash with people for the activities. 

The Bears quickly found kindred spirits in some women’s soccer teams from North and South America and watched the whole thing unfold. With Abba, Motown and Boz Scaggs tunes conjuring up memories of Jurassic, the sun obliged by folding itself behind the mountains in the distance that would host other bear activities later in the trip. 

After a window into the sacred properties of authentic Japanese whisky (which the Rosewood’s bar seemed to stock quite routinely) from Big Wave, the group took the first of many excursions into the subterranean world of Prohibition. 

From there, as with any opening night, the stars all found a way to shine. 

Sandy Bay slipped straight into his comfortable passing stranger raconteur mode, the professor continued his inexhaustible search for detailed information from members of the opposite gender from all parts of the globe, Pau soon had an assembled female throng taking in his unique storytelling skills, Big Wave ran an occasional moving pick type chaperone arrangement for Coach K and the wine mogul recounted a tale of a workplace excursion gone wrong (or maybe right) that is now etched indelibly in my impressionable mind. 

Sunday morning’s third game will appear in the record books as a 48-32 over Correlieu Legends. 

What will hopefully dissolve into history's wasteland are the 10 closing minutes that may well go down in GOB annals as the messiest extended period of play ever seen at this level. Thankfully, the starters were able to enjoy the show from the safety of the bench and our opponents and their supporters kept the mood lively. 

However if you’re looking for a key indicator as to just how bad things got, at one point the owner simply left the bench and went to relieve himself

With that one out of the way, once the attentions of some curious local beach volleyballers had been catered to by Sandy Bay, Big Wave and the professor, the team’s sights turned towards the afternoon semi-final.

Despite the short turnaround and Pau’s propensity for fouling restricting his role, the crossover went smoothly enough. Big Wave put on a flash-cut clinic and T Bone unveiled his latest political sky-hook offering (which at this stage was prophetically stuck between being accompanied by a shrill “Hillary” or “Donald” verbal cue). Bone also interspersed what was a breakout performance with a few turnarounds and the Doctor added a line drive that started below the rim and somehow overspun its way over the front of the iron and in. 

It finished 55-32 to the Bears and we were somehow limping on towards Monday’s grand final and a rematch with the Canadian Zen Masterz. 

The post game refreshments were at a “Bus Driver Manny” selected bar, where Fat Tug was the brew of choice and a welter of Aussies were manning the taps. During the review, the owner recounted a practical example of the possibilities of choosing the title “Sir” for your next credit card and Manny diligently sought his favoured around the corner and out of sight pick up spot. 

After dinner at the Keg that night a random search began for a bar to take in some of the local atmosphere. 

After a deal of wandering and without any real leads, the group opted to drop into what appeared to be a very quiet and close to home place called the Roxy. The bar staff seemed quite plentiful and upbeat inside, despite the absence of a crowd, which maybe should have given a clue as to what was about to unfold. 

Within a few minutes, what had been a trickle of younger looking patrons arriving quickly became a torrent, a country rock band materialised on stage and the Roxy was alight. 

The specifics of what transpired over the next few hours between comings and goings, inquisitive local youngsters, a pair of mountain bikers with a generational synergy and some seriously infectious music will live with those who were there; if you had to pick a single highlight it my well have been T Bone’s instinctively enthusiastic (and Vancouver themed) welcoming cry on sighting the aforementioned mountain biking ladies, but suffice to say that the Roxy will be on the must see list for any future Vancouver adventures. 

Finals day arrived and the doctor reported bright and early for the bus trip with a spring in his step, due to finding a correspondent-free window to continue his life-long road test of his clinical crusade for men’s health. 

The fantastic venue for the final at UBC befitted the contest that unfolded once things got underway. Big Wave, Pau, Coach K, the Professor and the Owner started for the Bears and produced a quality opening that had the deeply-rostered hosts back on their heels at the half. 

Gradually though, the full court pressure and run of the Canadians bit deeper and deeper into a wounded GOB outfit. The Zen Masterz took a lead in the third quarter they would never relinquish and an over-zealous officiating interpretation after a missed infraction on Pau signaled the end of a great matchup. 

Both teams fittingly retired to nearby Mahoney’s bar afterwards, where the refreshments and stories of the game and others from the distant past flowed freely. 

Soon, Mini Manny appeared for the pick up and the Bears headed back to the waterfront Jurassic in a lively bus trip notable for the doctor’s verbal explanation of his "Hygiene is overrated" theory. 

That night the Bears had arranged a rendezvous at the Fairmont with the key personalities from that day’s finals opponents. 

As is customary is such situations, the hosts bought an offering of local produce as a sign of appreciation for the long trek the Bears had undertaken. Conveniently the sample mutated into various forms and provided a relaxing mood for the evening’s festivities. 

Now free from tournament responsibilities Bone and the wine merchant took the lead in reprising their roles as the GOB’s own Cheech and Chong. 

The ensuing evening was rather unstructured and the wine and food came and went, including a diminutive cheese plate that the owner mused was even smaller than anything he’d ever seen on a plane and was possibly even just some cheese molecules masquerading as a meal. 

The doctor regaled everyone with his eidetic memory of every sequence and statistic of every GOB games dating back to 2002, including the fact that he had never voluntarily asked for a substitution from the field of play. 

As we boarded the bus Bone’s eyes told a tale all by themselves. His reply to the obligatory “how are you feeling?” question, produced such a long pause and then an almost equally lengthy rendition of the single word “great” that really no more was needed. 

With the doctor and your correspondent designated for departure the next evening (prior to the 3 on 3 event), Rebecca had, as usual, found exactly the right spot on the Vancouver waterfront for a celebratory GOB lunch. 

That afternoon at Corderos the trip was rehashed in increasingly amusing detail: 

The owners shooting eyesight story, Pau’s re-enacting of his “No, No, No!” to the grand final official with the trigger whistle, the owner’s almost impossible left hand finish, T Bone’s wax melter and idea for therapeutic self-lubrication or even water bottle dilution for the 3 on 3. 

The clock was moving but time had ceased to have meaning as the five and a half hour mark ticked effortlessly by. 

The mood was one that most people don't often get to experience. 

Eventually the farewells were said and your scribe departed, leaving the festivities still going and the correspondent duties to a man who would soon be alone in his suite and potentially distracted by a cache of local produce. 

From the garbled reports that filtered through, the trip in search of real bears up on Whistler produced spectacular scenery but an absence of man-eaters. 

In the 3 on 3 tournament that followed, the young Bears came up agonizingly short in their Gold Medal game to the very same Zen Masterz. Fittingly though, an insatiable drive and Tavi-like cunning pushed the older GOBs to a memorable Gold Medal triumph in their hotly contested event.

The final night in Vancouver may or may not have featured: a return run at the Roxy, the last night of the exclusive Russian Ballet tour, a deep dive into Prohibition, a mistakenly borrowed limousine and a rather chaotically late farewell to a city that gave as good as it got from the Bears. 

Roll on Auckland.

[hooptrition]

A rowing odyssey

It was one of those gorgeous spring evenings on the Yarra River that truly makes Melbourne sparkle.

In front of the Melbourne University boat house a crush of eager youngsters shuttled their boats on and off the water. Directly above, inside the clubhouse, a former Olympic Gold Medallist entertained an audience by teasing stories of Olympic success in Rio from a quartet that included Gold Medal heroine Kim Brennan.

Almost artfully, a young waitress dispersing canapés navigated her way in and out of the guests.

Barely an hour earlier the same young woman, Hedda Cooper, had been training in the very next room, plotting her own course towards a Brennan-like dream of elite sporting and academic achievement.  

Cooper started rowing eight years ago at High School because as she puts it, “it was another sport I could try.”

“I didn’t want to miss out on any sport so I did all of them,” she confided in typically positive fashion.

“And rowing stuck because it was a massive challenge that I was terrible at and I kind of liked the feeling of it….plus some of my friends did it.”

The Coopers were a decidedly sport family and the proximity in age of Hedda’s twin younger brothers provided a constant testing ground for her sporting explorations.

“They are 18 months younger but I always wanted to beat them at everything,” she said quite enthusiastically.

“I had a list of all the sports that I knew of and I gave myself a tick when I thought I was OK at them, two ticks when I thought good and three ticks when I thought I was better than good.”

At end of Year 12 Cross Country skiing and rowing had emerged as Cooper’s favourite sports but living in the city simply provided more opportunities in rowing. She applied to study for a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne and joined the Melbourne University Boat Club (MUBC).

“The rowing environment I’d come from was all about developing school pride and I really tried to carry that pride that I had for MUBC into my time on campus…connecting the two things in every way I could,” she said.

Her progression as a rower was swift and in that first year of university she was selected in the Australian Junior coxless four for the World Championships in Lithuania.

That experience was the tipping point for her and “from there all I wanted to do was make another team,” she said.

Whilst the lure of representing your country in a sport that you love is intoxicating, once you start to combine and daily routine of tertiary study and part time work, things quickly get quite complex.

“Just about every day I was up and cycling from home to the sheds at 5.45 am,” she revealed.

“Then it was a warm up and get on the water for about two hours, row around 20km, get off and sprint up to uni, have brekkie in a lecture, hang out there until either an afternoon two-hour gym session or a one-hour erg….or sometimes both.”

2015 saw more international honours come her way with a trip to Korea representing Australia at the Gwangju Summer Universiade.

Yet all the while she continued to plough through her studies.

“I’m really passionate about studying as well and I’m not going to lie, I think I’ve done well at uni and have never failed a subject,” she said.

“I wanted to finish my undergraduate degree in three years and did intensive subjects and a few in the summer, plus I’d taken chemistry courses in year 12 which knocked a few subjects off.”

Inevitably Cooper found a way to keep all the balls in the air and graduate on cue in 2015.

Then she made a decision to take a year to contemplate post-graduate study and chase another world championship dream in the under 23 age division. However, whilst she made it to the Netherlands as part of the Australian Women’s eight in August, her reflections on a life without study are fascinating.

“It’s been my first year of virtual full time rowing and while I’m at my fittest, I think I‘ve probably enjoyed rowing more when I’ve had lots going on and particularly study,” she observed.

“This year I’ve spent more time focused on rowing and you don’t just get on and get off but tend to keep thinking about it. If I had to choose between this and being hectically busy trying to balance uni or school and rowing, I probably I’d pick the hectic option.”

Somewhere in the middle of her science studies the idea of post graduate study in medicine began to crystallise.

“As soon as I did an anatomy subject at uni I knew I was hooked. It quickly became a matter of how many anatomy subjects I could do and I finished up doing anatomy and physiology and not much else,” she said.

Very much like elite rowing, post graduate entry into medicine is a hugely competitive endeavour.

Having applied for a place at Melbourne and range of other institutions, all she could really do was sit and wait in the hope of getting that all-important interview.

“Unfortunately I didn’t get an interview at Melbourne and just how close I was I’m not sure,” she said.

“You don’t really get that feedback, though I do have friends who got through that stage and their GPA and GAMSAT score were pretty close to mine.”

When quizzed if those successful friends were student-athletes, she reverts to a familiarly genuine giggle in describing them as “sporty.”

In what’s likely an emotional response rooted in her healthy love of competition, she sits upright for the first time in our chat and offers, “I’m really happy to have gotten one definite offer and another interview and I know I want to do it.”

As her voice quivers a touch on the last syllable, you can’t help but think that it’s maybe a preview of what will eventually become her bedside manner.

Overwhelmingly sunny side up, but with a healthy dash of steely resolve.

The Australian Women’s four at Gwangju Universiade (Hedda Cooper is second from the left)

[hooptrition]

Nic Beveridge talking Paratriathlon with ABC 666 in Canberra

[hooptrition]

Sporting philanthropy overdue?

Whilst it’s fantastic that the AIS Training Hall floor is being replaced courtesy of the public purse for the sum of $750,000, that news bounced into view at the same time as the "Nike misses Stephen Curry” expose on espn.com revealed that Kent Bazemore was another in the long list of NBA players to be donating large sums of money back to the institutions that helped their development.

Given the very recent and very public AIS/AOC sparring about existing government funding, maybe it’s time to consider whether graduate athletes could be assisting their development programs here in Australia, in the event they become professionals in their chosen sport?

As foundation AIS coach Patrick Hunt opined this week, "The training hall has been a factory for producing basketball stars and propelling them to international stardom.”

Given that premise, is it unreasonable to expect that the long list of famous professional stars mentioned in the original Canberra Times story could contribute back to the very program that spawned their careers?

The Bazemore gift back to Old Dominion Unversity is certainly more of the norm than the exception and significantly came at a time when he was still establishing himself in the NBA.

Carmelo Anthony's gift of $3 million back to Syracuse University (where he spent just one year as a student-athlete) to start building the Melo Center, certainly generated a deal of media coverage.

However, the New York Times last year lifted the lid of what’s more of an epidemic of philanthropy amongst professional American athletes.

Granted, our system of government funding for elite and future professional sports development is slightly different.  However, developing a culture  of appreciation and philanthropy from those who can afford it can only be a positive thing for the next wave of future stars.

[hooptrition]

ACTAS Paratriathlete Nic Beveridge on ABC Canberra Grandstand with Tim Gavel, Saturday March 19th 2016

[hooptrition]

Sports Lottery nirvana looks fine from high above

It’s hard to determine which part of Saturday’s proclamation from reappointed Australia Sports Commission CEO John Wylie that we need a National Lottery to provide even more public funding to High Performance sport was more disappointing.

On one hand there was a senior bureaucrat suggesting that more funding is needed and that not only do we need to take it very seriously, but that we should be gouging those least able to afford it even deeper via a new National Lottery to do so.

On the other we have a senior journalist with a reputable national news outlet in the Australian allowing such claims to go not only unchallenged by any critical analysis (read journalism), but to be presented as the only option.

Whilst Mr Wylie definitely has a deep resume from his time as a highly successful investment banker, there’s no doubt he has yet to acknowledge or display any empathy or concern for exactly who would be providing this new windfall for a handful of elite institutions and athletes.

There is a litany of research that demonstrates that lotteries and gambling in general hits those least able to afford it the hardest (noted economist Richard Wolff has some of the simplest evidentiary takes), yet here we have an already audaciously and publicly funded sports organisation pleading poor on the sole basis that “the countries have it, so we need it”.

All this flashed before on a weekend where I got to observe the real heart of the Australian Sporting system at work, deep  in the southern suburbs of Melbourne. From Dromana all the way up to Frankston, thousands of young basketballers were taking part in a tournament spanning more than twenty venues and in essence run entirely by community association volunteers.

To me this showed the ingenuity and “can do” attitude that is truly Australian.

To have a lavishly funded government body’s CEO make an unchallenged cry to tax the poorest parts of society even more on the basis that other countries are doing it is tough to stomach...and that’s without even considering whether the model of elite sport being dependent on government largesse is even the best way of doing things.

[hooptrition]

Grumpy Old Bears take France

Way back in 218 BC a Carthaginian general named Hannibal (read owner) set out from the southern most tip of Spain (read Sydney) and led his army (including elephants) over the Alps, through southern France and into the heart of the empire of the rulers of the known world, the Romans.

On the surface the whole plan seemed outlandish, with more comfortable domestic skirmishes available much closer to home (read Adelaide).

 However Hannibal and the Carthaginians had seen the bigger picture and understood the known world was there to be explored and conquered.

Thus it was that twenty-two hundred and thirty three years after Hannibal’s audacious coup, the owner assembled a familiar and battle-hardened crew to take the French Riviera and the European Masters by storm.

With Big Wave Don magnetically drawn to the promise of El Nino-produced swells of irresistible beauty back home, the Californian wine mogul returned to the fray to partner T Bone in their fruitless quest to match the nocturnal meanderings of Coach K……but more of that later.

The ten-day extravaganza began with the familiar staggered assembly in Nice, the home of Rose wine (reputedly pronounced Rossee, which though it was hard to absolutely confirm as authentic, seemed to stick).

Bizarrely, the first evening was a wretched one weather wise. However, on cue, the owner, the wine mogul, the Sri Lankan assassin (and part-time pension fund impresario), T Bone and your correspondent gathered in the bar of our new home for ten days, the spectacular La Perouse hotel.

There the stories and the realization that we’d all made it to another chapter in Bears folklore took centre stage. Even when mid-Rose order, the barman quite casually put the shutters up and walked off, it couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm for what lay ahead.

The first day or so was game free and offered a chance to explore the beachside town, which was beautifully designed to cater for relaxation of the food, wine and watching-the-world-go-by variety.

Les Distilieres Ideales was a frequent stop and the locals and visitors alike seemed to take to the red-jacketed (the latest addition to the GOB catalogue) throng with Christian Laettner’s former girlfriend regaling us with basketball tales that almost mirrored our own.

Game one was against a very crafty Russian outfit but all was going to plan with scores tied just after the half, when two of said Soviets performed their own version of the ‘elevator doors’ play on a cutting Ballarat Pau. The aftermath saw Pau carted off the treatment room, gushing claret, by what can only be described as two of the most unenthusiastic ambulance officers on the planet.

A splash of water later Pau was back on the bench but in no state to continue. With Coach K ailing, it was left to what was mostly the might of a regular Thursday night rooftop outfit to subdue the seasoned Eastern Europeans.

Bone did manage to redirect his astonishment at a foul call into a commentary on the oral hygiene of the man he was supposed to have transgressed against, but it was a jet-lagged display and the boys from North Venice (apparently a reference to St Petersburg’s reputation as the Venice of the North!) took the win and probably began to wonder about which paranoid individual had handled their entry form.

Saturday night was Wallabies night with the English on the menu and our hosts at Lou Pastrouil Bar were (a) all male and (b) very keen for the Wallabies to “exterminate those English bastards”. The game was going well when the only other bit of bad weather we endured hit in one titanic blow, scuttling the crowd, dismantling the external part of the restaurant and cutting all the power.

When this event is discussed in future retellings some may say that this chaos created the perfect smokescreen for Pau, the Sri Lankan Assassin and your correspondent to do a runner on the bill………in truth it was, as Bill Clinton was fond of saying, “a simple misunderstanding”, and Bone’s assertion that he was surprised we didn’t take the TV as well on our way out is neither humorous nor accurate.

It was about this time that the realization that we were now playing ten-minute fully timed quarters began to take hold.

The Whale Bar was quickly scouted and anointed as the pre-game-two preparation bar by the three-man leadership group of Coach K, the wine mogul and T Bone. Sadly for said bar it would be callously cast aside when something shinier and full of actual people came along.

Somewhere in amongst the coming and going of game two, another messy affair against a Khazakhstan team from the Ural Mountains (which is pretty much in Siberia), the wine merchant threatened to wear his fall-back shorts to our first Michelin stop at La Mere Germaine and the Doctor arrived after being rerouted to Milan. Naturally, he had travelled with his turbo-charged bag of “pain go away” solutions, which never seems to raise even a cursory inquiry from staff at airports where the security all seem more concerned about having the latest machine guns prominently displayed.

The Opera Plaige restaurant became the early afternoon venue for lunch and it was indeed a spectacular spot to watch the world go by, situated smack bang in the centre of Nice beach with tables offering panoramic view of the endless scenery.

The menu there was simple in that the waiter calmly advised it was fish A or fish B, only one of which was generally available. The Rossee-coloured glasses that resulted from an extended afternoon there made even the owner’s rubber slip-on swimming shoes blend in, and apart from T-Bone’s temporary mesmerisation (“I can’t look away”) with a topless patron, who could comfortably have slipped into a masters age category a decade or two beyond our vintage, we quickly became an accepted part of the furniture there.

Inevitably the delightful German girl behind our hotel reception desk took a shine to T-Bone and he at least got to reprise his European repartee skills that appeared to be totally transferable across the continent. In a similar vein, the professor took that approach to a much wide audience, meeting and greeting people in a what amounted to an impressively practical demonstration of networking that Mr. Zuckerberg could only dream about replicating.

Rumours regarding the whereabouts of the GOBs did float back from Adelaide, where the indigenous version of the Masters was taking place, with the Seychelles being bandied about as a hiding place till Auckland. However, the owner’s publicity department simply heightened the mystery by refusing to confirm or deny anything until the medals had been fought for in Nice.

The doctor had arrived with a new wrinkle to his 21-gun salute story, gleefully describing an examination he had undergone and its findings, which for most mere mortals is a thing of some reservation. The fact that the result was peanut-sized seemed to prove the Doctor’s long held tenet about male health and wellbeing, and he didn’t miss many opportunities to continue to push his thesis.

Games three and four came and went with the Bears putting their finals push back on track via comfortable wins over the Latvians and Irish. Coach K had by now been introduced to the therapeutic benefits of Wayne’s bar, with table-top dancing magically repairing his ailing hamstring long enough to realign his perimeter shot and provide a steady flow to Pau inside. The owner’s metronomic midrange offerings recalibrated and finally the hook made a glorious re-appearance.

As usual, there was also a cavalcade of unexplained incidents:

The wine mogul’s eagle eyes as he was exiting the room one day caught some fraternising between two of the house maids (a vision the trailing Bone somehow contrived not to see), Norwegian (handball) and Lithuanian (volleyball) women’s teams kept close tabs on all GOB activities after being initially induced by the professor’s walk-up introduction technique, Bone and the Wine Mogul demonstrated an innate ability to locate Wayne’s Bar in amongst the maze of alleyways by scent alone and a strange guy who claimed to know your correspondent in Wayne’s suddenly did a runner without even introducing himself.

Inevitably the global referee conspiracy that has dogged Bone across the globe was in vogue again, with his arrival in France undoubtedly having raised red flags in the officiating world. Accordingly, he was the only player all week to get an official warning and the tournament organizer did reveal that his updated dossier has been returned to Norths for ongoing use.

The owner, the professor, the assassin and your correspondent had a momentary lapse of sanity and agreed to play back to back one day for the local French team that has been riddled by unavailability due to the storm damage earlier in the week.  

About this time Bone revealed some of his own rules that may have been a mystery to those not paying close attention previously. Included amongst these gems was one that specified never going to the same bar three nights running. Just how strictly that was enforced is hard to gauge, though the ever-present local nocturnal business women many floors below and poor souls housed on the same floor as our own version of the three musketeers are probably more capable than most of assessing that, after prolonged exposure to their 3 and 4 am balcony ‘entertainment’ sessions.

With what would turn out to be the Gold Medal match in view, the owner had arranged (or at least Rebecca had channeled the owner’s thoughts into action to arrange) for a spectacular boat trip to Monaco and the edge of Italy. In truth though, to call it a ‘boat trip’ is beyond disingenuous as said vessel was massive, amazingly appointed and staffed superbly by a crew replete with Norwegian law student assistance.

Despite the doctor making a non-emergency on-deck strip down change in view of said staff and an increasingly maniacal (proportional to the never-ending volume of verve consumed) call to arms by Coach K for the imminent “Mega Bowl” match against the Czech Republic team, it was a stunning day in one of the world’s great settings.

After Coach K had put a cap on things by unveiling his newly honed French ‘gobberish’ to an unsuspecting dockside security guard on disembarking, we retired to the Mojito Bar (a venue that would seem to have been used extremely frequently, in direct contravention of Bone’s code) to discuss the strategy around the next day’s final game (Mega Bowl).

The next day’s game would in fact turn out to be the Elite 45s Grand Final in what was testimony to the owner’s post-game assessment that "someone is indeed watching over us".

With Coach K and Pau prominent early on, the result was never really in doubt and if there’s ever been a more fitting moment in sport than a player who hasn’t had a play run specifically for him for more than 30 years (the Doctor had March 1983 etched in his memory) making the final basket on such a designed play, then I’ve yet to see it.

The medals were handed out and we wandered up to the odd little bar, come supermarket, come coffee shop to down a few celebratory ales.

There, small, unsolved pieces of the trip continued to spill out:

How many times had the “runway been overshot”?

Just what is a rat with a gold tooth?

Is the water always 21 degrees according to all Swedes?

Is Reggie the doctor’s secret alter ego?

Who exactly was the last man to wear an elephant decorated tie with sandals and socks to a Michelin restaurant?

Had the referees rehearsed the “Number 33 come back here” line?

Did Pau and the doctor really mean just 5 minutes when they asked for some temporary space?

Was the daily rearrangement of the breakfast room setup some type of psychological ploy by the hotel staff?

Can the wine mogul’s trans pacific flight tale of 2 tablets and the consequences of overfilling ever not be astonishingly painful but amusing?

The Sri Lankan Assassin pushed the world’s financial worries aside for a while to capture the last day or so of activities and explained the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to stream the Kings game at breakfast.

On the last night the BBC film crew that was magnetically drawn to the GOB story (or at least the Ballarat Pau part of it), returned to film some ‘team relaxation’ footage at Lou Pastrouil bar where the team had gathered to watch the Wallabies take on Wales.

As they were filming, they asked for the traditional glasses clink.

History and film will unfortunately show that hidden amongst the toast was a jarring image of the doctor’s glass of mineral water. In what were not unprecedented circumstances, T-Bone was late for the function and missed the BBC crew entirely.

Unlike the GOBs, Hannibal and his armies eventually were worn down by the (Mega) Romans……….for the Bears it’s onto Vancouver (there was another version of the city name floating around on Mega Bowl night) and then hopefully Auckland to defend the Torino silverware.

I’ll leave a final word to the owner who released this accidental gem one evening at the Mojito Bar: “Lawyers are like the GOBs.....they take you on a journey, here, here, here and here.......then all of a sudden they've got you, bang!”

[hooptrition]

Cara digs in for the longer haul

Last year the world starting turning much faster for then ACT Academy of Sport (ACTAS) rowing rookie Cara Grzeskowiak.

Her days at that time had a groundhogian feel to them: up at 5 am, off to rowing, home for breakfast, duck off to University, dash over to ACTAS for more training, home for dinner and then sleep.

Training was six days a week with often some Sunday competition on the seventh, as part of a schedule designed to assist her latent talent to keep revealing itself.

On the odd morning she didn’t have a pre-dawn rowing commitment she confessed to partaking in possibly her only vice:

“Sleeping in is something I’m good at and I love it,” Cara said.

Cara and her family moved to Australia from England when she was five and her earliest sporting memory is tobogganing down a little hill near the family home in Bath.

Swimming, horse riding and some mixed high school soccer were her activities of choice before the first touch point with rowing about three years ago during Year 11.

Capital Lakes club here in Canberra was recruiting and the pitch involved Cara simply being relatively tall and a family friend of someone else taking part.

Having decided to give it a go, Cara was quickly thrown in at the deep end.

“The boats were a lot smaller than I expected, hard to balance and certainly not the rowing boats you see in pictures” she said.

“I started in a single and nearly fell in a couple of times, but the instruction was good and the club had a massive group of girls my age, so it was easy to enjoy.”

Nearly all the other girls at the club were from schools that had rowing programs, unlike Telopea which Cara attended, and accordingly they were well ahead of her in those initial sessions.

Things quickly started to turn around though and before long Cara had won her first singles event.

“I wasn’t one for running around and hugging people or yelling and the internal pleasure and satisfaction was more than enough,” she recalled.

She started to formulate some plans in her mind and did speak to a few of her coaches about these ideas. However it wasn’t until a little later in 2013 when ACTAS was conducting some talent identification trials that the next step of her journey commenced.

“National time trials went quite well and then it was straight on to NSW and Australian Championships,” she said.

“I seemed to keep improving as my strength and technique developed and about that time I almost mastered a single push-up, which was a minor miracle for me given previous attempts.”

Despite coming from a family not weaned exclusively on sport, Cara’s progress was always assisted, with her dad assuming the role of trailer towing driver and her mum taking care of accommodation scheduling and the like.

After winning the single scull event in a Trans Tasman event in Sydney some more lofty dreams and goals began to pepper her thinking.

Speaking with her shortly after the Sydney event, she even peered around her self-designed cloak of modesty to speak about wanting to try and get to the 2015 World under 23 Championships scheduled for Bulgaria in July.

............................................

A lot has happened since that day when part of a dream was revealed, and as with most intriguing sporting tales, it starts with something going awry.

Cara was indeed, by virtue of her rapid improvement and performances, selected in the Australian team to compete in Bulgaria.

That set in motion an astounding new training and travel regime that saw her make a weekly commute to Sydney to join the rest of the Australian quad scull in exhaustively compressed blocks of on and off water work.

Her accommodation whilst there was a series of hastily arranged billets and her time not in training was spent racing back to Canberra to continue a compressed schedule of her full-time degree at ANU.

You almost sense something had to give, and it did.

.........................................

A rib injury that started as something that was merely annoying soon began to get quite painful.

Whilst five days rest was the initial diagnosis, it soon revealed itself to be something far more limiting and before Cara knew it she would be sitting in the middle of one of those meetings that every elite athlete dreads.

Whilst the injury percolated, Cara had still been travelling to Sydney to be with her crew, though her former double partner had by now been brought in to train with them as a precaution.

“Everyone was telling me that I was probably not going to be on the team as they’d seen similar injuries but in reality a final decision was still to be made,” she said.

“When they first told me I was going to miss worlds and be off the water for months, I couldn’t really comprehend either idea and there were a few tears”.

July’s Worlds were something Cara could only watch from afar and think ‘what ifs?’ about.

“I had friends in the boat and wanted to see them do well, so their Silver Medal was a really positive thing and reminded me that I’m capable of competing at that level,” she said.

 Recently Cara returned to the water as her rehabilitation plan stepped up and there has been lots of support to help that process.

“Friends and family were always asking me when I was going to be back on the water and kept checking up on me, which was really nice,” she said.

Her most immediate target is now competing for ANU at The Australian University Games at the end of September and getting on track for next year’s national time trials which lead in to a combined World under 23 regatta.

Thinking ahead, Cara would like to try to make that event in a single scull as part of a modestly expressed preference for smaller boats.

For the moment though, her studies in science and economics, a part time job in database management at ACTAS and her increasing training regime are keeping her more than busy.

When pressed as to what she might say to another athlete put in the same injury position she experienced, there was a pause before a signature wry smile.

“I’d tell them it does get better. Yes it really sucks to not get to go to what you want, but next year you can come back stronger.”

[hooptrition]

[hooptrition]

Tigers Girls double up at MSAC

It had been just another Sunday morning full of activity at MSAC as the Tigers Girls array of players, coaches and parents went through their paces of coffee, shooting and scrimmages.

Come the end of junior training though, it was an opportunity to wander into the show courts and see the some of the graduates of the just completed junior chaos playing for the Tigers senior girls.

The Youth League girls (notionally Under 23 but starting as young as 15 for the Tigers) were first up at midday. There was a healthy throng of parents, youngsters and supporters peppering the stands  as this very young “senior” team set about dealing with the best that Bulleen's Boomers could offer.

The game was a thriller and after watching a sizeable lead shrink and almost vanish, the Tigers managed to hang on for a 66-59 win that takes their record to 9-0. Guards Ash Stainer and Ellen Kett along with versatile wing Peri Kalka bore most of the responsibility of keeping the team on an even keel in the frantic last few minutes.

The senior Tigers women were next, and for any parents who haven't been aware of the games or had the chance to bring their daughters along to watch, let me recommend the experience.

Like the Youth League team, the Tigers senior or “Big V” women are a family and club affair. However, the spread of contributors in this team ranges from some current Under 18 players right through to playing mums with their own kids starting out in the game at Tiny Tigers.

The team has undergone some upheaval in recent years and was almost totally reliant on a very young roster before the arrival of Irish spark-plug Jess Scannell and the return home of former Tigers junior star Helen Roden.

Spurred on by the feel-good crowd, a steady stream of tunes and an array of youngsters that spilled onto the courts to shoot at every available break in play, the Tigers girls held off a gallant Diamond Valley outfit 78-69. The win takes the team to a mid-table position that even the league's official weekly preview theorized was all but impossible after a slow start to the season.

So the last remaining question may be, “Why should I come to watch this team the next time they play?”

Well first-up, no fewer than six of the team's players (Courtney, Ilena, Helen, Jess Scannell, Jess Peterson and Emily) are actively involved as volunteer coaches of your own daughters within the junior program. All these girls have jobs/study/careers and their own training and lives to shape around their commitment to your daughters' teams and their involvement is very, very unique.

The second persuasive argument revolves around the example being set by Big V coaches Kent Kavanagh* and Karen McCrae.

Both are parents with multiple kids involved in the Tigers programs;

Both have multiple club roles, Karen as secretary of the club and Kent as a junior assistant coach;

Both conduct themselves on the sidelines and bench with calm, intelligent but passionate attention to every part of the coaching process.....there is no ranting or yelling and pacing up and down in front of the bench, berating of officials or indiscriminate and persistent yelling at players and Kent's interaction with the game officials on Sunday was a lesson in how to win friends and ultimately influence people (in this case the referees) to consider an alternate point of view;

So mark this Saturday the 9th at MSAC in your diary for 6 pm for the senior girls or stay around on Sunday the 10th for the Youth League girls at 12 pm and bring your daughters to watch a league they might one day play for the Tigers in.

*It's also worth noting that although you'd never elicit the information from him with ease, that Kent has played the game at some of the highest levels available in the country (like many of our talented Tigers coaches) and brings that wealth of experience to the Tigers club and Big V program.

[hooptrition]

Grumpy Old Bears keep the streak alive

When the aging Spurs lassoed their fifth NBA title across a fifteen-year span in June, most media pundits naturally drew a comparison to the Grumpy Old Bears' seemingly endless dominance across the world masters stage.

The similarities between the two groups made the leap a logical one, with both having media-avoiding head coaches, mysterious ownership structures, a metronomic big man who defied the aging process and a cosmopolitan collection of players and alumni from across the globe.

Thus with the 2014 draft complete and a few players having been stashed overseas to clear some cap space, it was a largely familiar roster that assembled to defend the Pan Pac crown on the 'always sunny and 30 degrees' Gold Coast.

Amongst the absentees, the Trolhatton doctor left by far the most egregious roster hole for management to fill. As advanced metrics have become part and parcel of the game, the true value of the doctor's overflowing skill set have been steadily uncovered. Accordingly, whilst the turbo pills that can turn agony into a loss of sensation in a mere moment, and the world's flattest bank-shot were definitely missed, it was moreover his absolute living embodiment of what the GOBs are all about that left a gaping hole.

In somewhat of a Swedish exodus, our runaway franchise point scoring leader and Kobe channeler remained at home rehabbing from a Dublin shoulder malfunction and the seven-day contracts of Dr Claes and Central Basket supremo Svante were transferred back to their Euroleague masters clubs. The San Franciscan wine mogul somehow again left his dash across the Pacific too late and second round picks and a cash consideration have reportedly been offered for his future rights. However the owner publicly indicated that the mogul's ability to drive the break, hound opposing guards and keep backup centre T Bone in domestic room-mate bliss were of critical long-term value to the franchise. 

Into the rotation as rookies came the Shire's laconic big wave surfer Don MacLean and another of the multitude of agile guards who spent a chunk of their careers searching for new ways to get the rock to Ballarat and the now the GOB's version of Tim Duncan. This new swinging guard had a very un-GOB like Tony Parker agility and an IT bent that came in handy when the owner's beloved Kings  needed in house streaming later in the week.

Coach Pop still had at his disposal the familiar core of Ballarat Timmy, the midrange gunslinging owner, omnipresent T Bone, Rocket Rod Laver, Captain Kiwi, the former ABA's first ever Sri Lankan draft pick and your road running correspondent as part of a sleuth (collective noun no less) of Bears deigned to strike fear into the MegaRomans, who had ruled the known world for any years before slipping off the radar.

Captain Kiwi and Laver had somehow committed to the Romans in another age group as what appeared to be part of a sociological study of fallen empires, but for everyone else it was a very sane schedule of a game a day and lots of rest and relaxation.....though Don MacLean did puzzlingly seem a little obsessed with hearing every detail of the Turin extravaganza over and over again.

The games themselves mostly went to plan with an opening slugfest against the MegaRomans turning late on as Coach Pop ventured down into Timmy's domain to create a few nuggets. From there the remaining pool games were solid if unspectacular. The T Hook was surprisingly as rare as the Dodo, Big Wave Don was a terror on the glass at both ends, the rookie professor filled in all manner of gaps athletically and aesthetically, Ballarat Timmy continued to mine his Old Man River bag of tricks on the block, the Owner became once again "no need to rebound" money from the baseline, Rocket Rod Laver bought his uncanny Newtonian Physics like ability to slow time and space to play, the Sri Lankan assassin rediscovered his touch in all areas bar leading the transition break (a reverse coaching clinic video for juniors is in the works), Captain Kiwi showed a mystifying penchant for drifting to the perimeter and channelling his inner guard off the bounce and your correspondent just kept running as per instruction.

The Adelaide Steelers were dispatched comfortably in the Semi Final leaving the sprightlier of the MegaRoman outfits standing as the only obstacle between keeping alive a streak that has stretched from the Gold Coast to Turin and back again in the the benchmark age bracket the Bears have made their own. 

But more of the final showdown later, as there was so much newsworthy activity going on away from Runaway Bay's stadium and outdoor refreshment centre.

It was none other than our Swedish Kobe who, when not carrying our attack and jousting with officials or driving away tables of likely looking Irish females, had often opined that as long as the GOB adventures continued, it would be the time spent relaxing with a glass and shooting the breeze that would assume priority. This trip certainly re-emphasised that point, as the dinners became longer and more and more people lingered at the table or the bar before even thinking about the Jurassic world that lay across the way.

The Italian restaurant directly below our apartments with the strangely beguiling Canadian waitress became a regular haunt and oddities such as 'bruschetta parties' were not uncommon. Thankfully the owner did correctly call out those small group aggregations of food on personal display stands as being peculiar at the very least. The venue also hosted a bizarre Seinfeld-style coincidence in which an intrepid T Bone grass-cutting exercise from Turin came full circle in front of his very eyes. Most would have been phased by such an occurrence but Bone's simple and final thought on the event was that he was a victim of his own "I fish anywhere I can put my hook" life philosophy.

The Rod Laver breakfast salon upstairs put on a couple of star culinary turns during the week but it was without doubt Coach Pop's sister and her band of netball mums who were the star turn at a joint dinner evening later in the week.

Rarely can such an unlikely marriage have been so spectacularly successful. The Wonder Women, as the netball side was known, may have had more fashionably conscious uniforms (there is always something about a red, white and blue star-spangled number that attracts attention), a higher traveling threshold on luggage and a raft of rookie initiations to undergo, but they were nonetheless in many ways the female mirror image of the Bears (if that's not too confusing for you Doctor).

At the aforementioned dinner the teams were arranged to sit in boy/girl formation to promote conversation and it being the first meeting there was a little apprehension as to just what sort of fizz would occur. Within minutes though, it became apparent that the girls ability to relentlessly and endearingly harangue each other at an ever-increasing volume was some of the very same glue that bound the Bears together. I vividly remember laying back to take in the entire table midway through dinner and being almost unable to distinguish who was who (apart from the golden lassos that adorned each of the girls wrists that is). As the night progressed and spilt over to Jurassic there was an incredible cartwheel sequence from Super Mel that would have done any 13 year old Olympic gymnast in a floor routine proud, liberal use of said lassos and a series of struck proposals for future tournament integration.

Instagram was deemed to be the best way of tracking the both teams' remaining days and adventures and the GOB site tells some of the story and history, along with the inevitably more stylish photography from the Wonder Women's initial foray into the masters world.

From there the rest is a blur of concertinaed events:

Ballarat Timmy reprised his coaching career trying to assist the lovely ladies from Goulburn but could only muster a single free throw from the strategic overhaul; T Bone surprisingly made a serious rookie mistake in getting an oil massage prior to one of the last games and his penultimate field goal attempt in that game was designated a 'squirt' by the statisticians, rather than a fumble or a shot; ever-smiling Murray of the MegaRomans gave some insight on the origins of the phrase "take this with you", that was apparently favoured back in the day in games by Coach Pop as he sauntered by with an elbow cocked (he has promised to demonstrate this for Frasse in Croatia or Ireland); Ray took a shot to the eye that invoked the blood rule for the first time in GOB records; Big Wave Don regaled us with his tales of his first ever trip to the Grafton Carnival and the strange pre-game rituals of the Manly team which probably explains the demise of their empire; Don also explained the mystical art of wind screen flopping that had so traumatised him and the passengers of the vehicle in question when he first witnessed it outside the Oaks so many years ago; the owner and your correspondent met a 58-year old shooting marvel from Brazil who had been the victim on an Oscar Schmidt elbow to nose re-arrangement back in the day and was surprised that there was even a masters event on the Gold Coast as everyone there was obviously 25 years old.

Maybe Steve Nash put both sides of the GOB conundrum best recently: "There is a time when people tell you, or your body tells you, that you can't do it anymore....that's a transition that's universal and extraordinarily difficult, but we don't spend much time on it and gloss over it. People give up sports, and they're not right, or something's missing for 20, 30 years. That's because we don't take time to deal with it or grieve. It hit me that I'm going to have to deal with this at some point if I'm going to live a happy and productive life after basketball. It's hard, sad and confounding when you have a glimpse of the end."

The final came and went with Ballarat Timmy's soft left handed hook being dusted off and playing the part of Luke's light sabre to sink the MegaRomans' Death Star. The owner didn't need to revisit his deadpan delivery of "this is not a very well balanced lineup" that had occurred during a semi final time out preceded by a slew of Bear turnovers, and in fact said owner and the Sri Lankan assassin were both perfect from the field in the final after holstering their equipment after a solitary attempt to focus on other areas. 

The owner summed up the status of the event when taking a call involving a potential $800 million litigation suit just after the final, by interrupting the caller to inform them that we'd won the Gold before taking any news on the litigation matters.

Thus the legend of the GOBs turned another page with new alumni added and the streak kept alive. Copious thanks are of course due to the entrancingly efficient Rebecca and there should be news of a lunch date pre-Christmas and hopefully a return visit to Ireland or a jaunt to Orlando or Croatia. 

As a final thought, one of my endearing coaching memories is watching Rick Pitino conduct an electric practice at Louisville that left the freshmen involved shattered after their repeat visits to the stationary bike for each misstep. In the midst of all the carnage he smiled broadly and offered to the assembled team in a truly charismatic tone nothing more than "fun is a choice gentlemen". Roll on the next GOB adventure.

[hooptrition]

Budding Opals begin their journey

Though they are just 13 and 15 years of age, things are happening at a very rapid rate for Isabelle and Callie Bourne, two of the newest scholarship holders at the ACT Academy of Sport (ACTAS).

The siblings are, by virtue of their involvement in the ACTAS program, starting out on a high performance pathway that climbs all the way to Australian Opals representation at the Olympics and World Championships.

The first and most obvious thing you notice about the two youngsters, apart from their precocious height and omnipresent braces which decorate their smiles, is their connection.

Mostly it doesn’t involve finishing each other’s sentences, but there’s clearly a well-honed sense of where each is heading with any response or comment, and exactly where an opportunity to interject or clarify will arise.

The girls had seen other local youngsters taken into the ACTAS program and decided that was a definite starting point they wanted to pursue.

“We knew what ACTAS was and as whatever I did had to be something with basketball, it was my first goal to get there,” Callie almost gushed.

As Issie (as Isabelle prefers to be known) quickly nodded in agreement, it became clear that there was almost two parts to their demeanours. The first was the very normal teenage awkwardness in framing definite ideas around adults, whilst the second was completely unfettered when talking about anything to do with basketball.

Children’s sport has a million and one variations and possibilities and its ultimate value in life is the subject of a mountain of scientific and anecdotal outpourings. However, if rampant enthusiasm and joy are any barometer, the Bourne sisters are living proof of the power it can have.

When future possibilities and goals bob up in the conversation, in unison they gush, “the Australian team!” Just how many of today’s teenagers might possess or be able to enthusiastically articulate goals like these is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly not a growth trend.

Just how far away the Australian Junior team programs might be is hard to gauge but the girls are already doing some introductory training with Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence program based at the Australian Institute of Sport.

The ACT under 16 team they were a part of the recent national championships finished a respectable eighth of fourteen teams and both their local club (Norths) and school (Daramalan College) are assisting in managing the growing workload they are embracing.

As to where Mr and Mrs Bourne fit in the girls are initially practical, citing organisation, transport and payment as essential to their journeys.

“On the way home in the car after a bad game, they would just remind us it was one of those days and to forget about it,” Callie offered, “though we could always let off some steam.”

In terms of role models you might instinctively think Lauren Jackson given their Canberra home base, but young Opals star Rebecca Allen was the player who seemed to have captured both the girls’ imaginations.

“We’ve watched her in the national league and she’s pretty amazing,” Callie explained. “She’s doing some of the things we’d like to do in terms of going overseas and being part of the Opals.”

Surprisingly, Issie is a fraction taller than Callie, which has led to them playing different roles in most of their teams. Home, however is another matter entirely.

“We play against each other and it’s always a straight up battle,” Callie said.

However when Callie then tries to explain that Issie might be the quickest to anger in these contests, she gets a look that starts out as a glare but quickly melts into laughter from her younger sibling.

Both girls seem very comfortable with the idea of their rivalry in these home contests and in many ways maybe that’s both a strength and bond that fuels their progress. Predictably, Callie’s final sign-off before they dash off to their next commitment just about sums up that ease with each other.

“It’s probably a good thing we’re in different teams every second year,” she says smiling broadly, “as I don’t think I could deal with it all the time.