CROSS OVER DRIBBLE

Craigieburn Eagle Big V Womens Division 1 player Renai Fejo I visited on my last recent visit to Victoria earlier this year will feature this week along with her family in the All-Stars - Picture credit taken by Friend

I sit here and write in Seven Seeds Roasters in North Melbourne at a “selah” period of my life on my four yearly holiday trip. As my commitment is to the SA core team for the National Baptist Carnival on an annual basis I only take this trip every four years and this year I decided to head to Melbourne for the week away and as they say with good shot selection, timing is everything.

Its a big week here for basketball in Melbourne and the country, the first ever indigenous international match in Victoria is occurring between Australia and USA (Kingdom of Hawaii team) at the State Basketball Centre in Knox and the Australian Boomers are here to play the USA on Thursday and Saturday night at Marvel Stadium. It also gives me a chance to check out some of the other basketball activities happening around here in the state so its exciting and I feel very blessed to be here at this golden time in basketball in the country.  Which leads me to something I’m very pleased to share about for those who enjoy reading my basketball analysis particularly with the NBL.

I am returning to writing during the NBL Season 2019/2020 with as I hinted in my title to this article And The Foul.Net as the Adelaide Correspondent. I am excited to have an opportunity to once again pursue my sports journalism craft in NBL via this time a national platform similar to the one I was very blessed to have when writing for the Adelaide 36ers back in 2016-2017. We are possibly going to witness one of the greatest NBL seasons to date and I can’t wait to answer some of the burning questions in the lead up to the 2019-2020 NBL season such as…

• For the Adelaide 36ers, does Deshon, Dan and Kev bring the much needed defensive intensity to balance the offensive firepower they’ve been over the past five seasons?
• For the Brisbane Bullets, can Lemanis balance the front court and back court rotations and finally unlock the key to unleashing the full potential of Nathan Sobey?
• For the Cairns Taipans, can the young talent play a brand of basketball under Mike Kelly that brings fans through the doors and keep any potential poachers from other clubs at bay so they can build a new core for the next half decade?
• For the Illawarra Hawks, we know its all about Lamelo Ball but are the next generation of Boomers also emerging out of one of the most exciting youthful lineups in the league and can coach Matt Flinn keep them motivated?
• For Melbourne United, will we see as reported the full force of Melo Trimble and Casey Prather as the most damaging import duo of the league?
• For South East Melbourne Phoenix, how much of Mitch Creek’s DNA regardless of whether he’s in Timberwolves gear by seasons end with be imprinted on a list that can make finals immediately in their first season? Further to this how much are we looking forward to Creek going to another level this season?
• For the New Zealand Breakers, regardless of list how will RJ Hampton go in our league this year and as Liam Santamaria said, are we all sleeping on the Breakers?
• For the Perth Wildcats, do we accept that they are a lock for finals regardless of list considering history or once again are we going to predict them just missing only to prove us wrong again?
• For the Sydney Kings, is this the year they finally take the next big step under new coach Will Weaver and win the whole thing or will they not live up to potential yet again?

And lastly, what will Tasmania’s next NBL team take the form of???

I can’t wait to dive deep into these questions along with the other writers at And The Foul.Net this season, so please follow along here for all my NBL articles for 2019-2020.

Website: https://andthefoul.net/

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The transformation of Mitch Creek from country basketball player to the NBA also bookends the end of one of my chapters in my life

I’m not sure even to this day why exactly I stopped producing the content I’d been churning out for the last few years on a whirlwind journey of what its like to taste a dream at the top to then have the very thing happen perhaps we all fear, a lack of control of our future. My years as a volunteer journalist for the sport I love was a culmination of study of a special interest that has always been my catalyst for sharing with others that if you have something you really want to do, then no matter where you are at life, spend even a small amount of time nurturing and caring for that craft, my mistake has been to drop it completely I’ve realised.

As my parents and people would know of my growing up, once I hit NBL basketball as an interest in the mid 1990’s I have never looked back. I am thankful to my Father Trevor for taking me to games week in and week out to see players that I now have the pleasure of still seeing from time to time around the SA Basketball scene including Brett Maher, Kevin Brooks and Steve Breheny for example. Not only that did I learn to study the game from a technical point of view, but my interest has always been the presentation of a game, the look, the feel, taking a small moment on court and turning it into a story of a moment. I think back to two seasons ago and the game two win in Perth to get us into our first Grand Finals since 2013, although the story didn’t finish the way I wanted it to for so many people I’d done a chapter of my life with, “Miracle on Swan River” remains one of my favourite stories to tell (You can read it by clicking here). That moment when I wrote that article about that game how much my writing was not just about telling a story of a basketball match but also the joy it gave people for the way it was written.

This same joy I love to echo in all my facets of anything I do, you’ll see this passion surface in my work with SA Church Basketball, the National Baptist Carnival down to my youth facilitating and mentoring at my workplaces. Many people do come to me and say how am I managing it all, my response to them is that “I’m trusting in Jesus, he knows me and knows my path, plan and what’s ahead.” As with most of us sometimes we feel we have to give away completely who we were created to be to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of life challenges we all deal with daily.

To juggle everything else both professionally and personally I stopped working on my craft of sports journalism thinking this is what others around me wanted to do, I did so willingly understanding that if I did then more of my story ahead would be revealed. This was cause those things I cared about very deeply and was willing to say I’ll step away from my personal passion to step into different kinds of joy giving. To write with guile is a professional skill and as a passionate sport journalist, I refuse to match what we see as a practice daily of creating a story from a negative or sensationalised piece of slandering news but rather create the story we all crave to hear daily. Ones of truth, elevation of a team or individuals achievement, the respectful nature of that we have the privilege to be able to share these athletes adventure both as spectators and as writers of their journey. Ironically the guile of writing style I have has been a blessing from the Lord for me as I’ve needed it to come to terms with decisions I’ve made in my life not have not been easy as well as realisation of myself as a person.

I have come to realise that sometimes no matter how much you sacrifice, change or rejig your life, there will always be factors and things beyond your control. This hit me like a freight train when I was asked to run my first ever faith based elective around Sport and Faith. I touched on three elements of the sporting life but also described that these things all biblically built as principles what we can control, what we can influence and what what we must adapt to. I realise I can control where I decide to put my time, effort and joy into but know through this I can influence others with my approach, my attitude and my approach to life daily. The day I stopped writing I realise I lost one of my abilities to be able to influence others the way I had been stepped on that journey by the Lord and as a result perhaps as most people know I lost the key thing that had been my gifting from the Lord and in no way manufactured by myself, I lost hope.

When hope leaves your life it is devastating, it has a tsunami like effect that engulfs you fully. When you have given it your all and poured so much time, effort and pain into things, relationships and life and it still isn’t enough its devastating. Over the time I stopped writing I realised this is not the end of my story and even though things remain in a “end of Empire Strikes Back” state, it is the end of a chapter of my life. There have been losses where I know I have had some control, some influence and also needed to adapt to and its been the single hardest lesson of life I have ever done. Out of that emerged finally what I have longed to know deep down for so long, was my identity truly laid in Christ after everything that has happened?

We never know until we have lost all our hope where the hope truly lies.

And doesn’t a good story keep its readers on the edge, what happened next tomorrow…