Inaugural Emerging Coaches Graduate

The inaugural intake of talented young coaches in the Basketball Australia Emerging Coaches Initiative are set to graduate after a successful and valuable 14 months of the program.

The program provided 31 young coaches from around Australia with the opportunity to learn from experienced coaches and industry leaders, as well as share ideas in regular webinars.

Given the challenges of Covid-19, much of the program was delivered on-line and included regular webinars featuring leading Australian and international coaches such as Brian Goorjian, Sandy Brondello, Victor Lapena, Damian Cotter and others from Australian and international leagues.

The inaugural program included coaches from all Australian states and territories, as well as guest coaches from Fiji and Guam as part of a partnership with FIBA Oceania.

Coaches engaged in the learning, with many of the webinars taking the form of open forum discussions and interaction with the experienced presenters and guest clinicians.

Designed to provide ongoing professional development across a raft of technical, tactical and leadership areas, participating coaches will all receive their Basketball Australia Performance Coach accreditation as part of the program.

All coaches continue to play a key role in player development across many different levels of the sport, with many of the coaches progressing into NBL and WNBL roles in the last 12 months.

Some of the notable highlights and achievements from our Emerging Coaches in the last 12 months have been –

• Brett Maksimovic guiding the NT Under 18 boys to one of their most successful AJC results ever in Wyndham in April
• Keegan Crawford working as an assistant coach with the silver medal winning Australia Gems and taking up a full-time role with the Perth Wildcats
• Kerry Williams serving as an assistant coach with the Australia Boomers for their Asia Cup qualifier in February
• Luke Cann claiming NBL1 North Coach of the Year honours
• Jacqui O’Neill being included in the BA Elite Female Coach Advancement Program
• Renae Garlepp guiding the NSW Under 20 White team to bronze and being included in the BA EFCAP
• Tom Garlepp coaching NSW Under 20 Women to a gold medal at the AJC in Mackay in May
• Sarah Graham working as an assistant coach for the Australian Gliders at the Tokyo Paralympics
• Jack Fleming taking up a full-time coaching role with the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers
• Jacob Chance guiding his Hawkes Bay Hawks to the NZ NBL championship game

These are just some of the achievements from this talented group of coaches and they will continue to play a key role in the development pathway in the coming years.

Basketball Australia would like to congratulate our Emerging Coach Initiative inaugural graduates –

Basketball Australia would also like to thank and acknowledge the state and territory associations for their support of these coaches and their ongoing work in coach development across the country. Special acknowledgement to Cal Bruton and Liam Flynn for their work with the program.