BIG BREAK INTO NBL

QDo you look at your move to the Perth Wildcats a few seasons back as your “big break” into the NBL?

AI guess so. There were opportunities for me to push harder towards the NBL before that but I was really enjoying coaching in the SEABL. I spent four years as an assistant before coaching Geelong for five seasons. I was loving the opportunity to run a men’s program after 20 years of being heavily involved with juniors in state and national teams. I was kind of tracking towards the junior elite pathway and then dabbling in the senior stuff. It got to the point where I started to feel like I needed to be challenged more at a senior level.

QDid Perth have an opening or did they purse you?

AThey had a changeover of head coach the year before and there was a spot. I applied and got it. I had three exciting years in Perth.

QYou came into the Wildcats as the lead assistant and eventually got overtaken by Matthew Nielsen as Trevor Gleeson’s main man. What was the process there?

AThat was a misunderstanding more than anything. When I got to Perth, there was no lead assistant and just a mistake with the PR department that I was the top assistant. I just came in as a first-year assistant coach in the NBL as well as two other assistant coaches. As a group, we were very inexperienced from an NBL point of view but we all had great experience in other areas of f basketball. But when Matt came in, they created a position of lead assistant coach to Trevor. It did not really exist prior to that and he comes in with 20 years of pro experience and a year with the Spurs in the NBA.