‘Treat the first game like the last’
BERND FRANKE
POSTMEDIA NEWS
The only local spectators will be sitting in the Meridian Centre stands next season if the new coach of the Niagara River Lions has anything to say about it.
Joe Raso, introduced Wednesday as the fourth head coach in the National Basketball League of Canada team’s history, is all about moving the ball to keep opposing defences away from the ball and off balance.
“We will use the pass as a weapon,” the 57-year-old Hamilton native promised at his introductory news conference.
“No one will ever accuse this team of not playing fast and hard.”
This will be Raso’s first time dealing with professional players as a head coach and the first time he will be dealing with players with the power to trade to another team.
“I think the first thing you need to do is respect people as people, and your order of work is best players play,” Raso said. “What happens in the pros is not the most-expensive players play, or the first-round draft picks play, but the best players play and you’ve got to teach them that and you’ve got to be accountable to that.”
Niagara has yet to make the playoffs entering its third season in the now 11-team league, but Raso isn’t filling the dual role of general manager and head coach feeling the added pressure of making an impact immediately at the expense of development over the longer term.
“I think you only win by developing, your team should be getting better as the season goes on, but you’ve got to treat that first game like the last game.”
He said overstepping or bypassing development shortchanges a team over the long run.
“When you fall in love with talent, and just talent, then you don’t win those close games,” Raso said. “I’d like to eliminate some of the confusion on the court, make a confident team play basketball real hard, real well.”
Raso, who will be assisted on the bench by his 27-year-old son Victor and Divya Rao of Blood, Sweat and Tears Basketball Training as skills development coach, feels he’s stepping into a “great situation” in Niagara.
At a news conference on Wednesday at the Kalar Road Sports Park, the partnership with Niagara United Soccer Club and Special Olympics Ontario was introduced.
A group of parents, players and local dignitaries gathered to celebrate the launch of the program, which Coens envisioned when she noticed her son struggling with some of the social aspects of playing competitive sports.
She said a lack of awareness in young children and, in some cases, their parents is to blame for a lack of understanding of what it’s like to live with autism, citing one incident as the root.
“Sometimes kids aren’t the nicest, because they’re not educated, they’re naive. I vowed it would never happen again,” she said, becoming emotional while delivering her remarks about the new program.
There are already 22 players signed up for the team and the first game will take place later this month.
The purpose of the new soccer circuit is to foster the development of the partnership by creating opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities.
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