Kiwi legend loses battle with cancer
Everybody knew ‘Coach’ McKean wherever he went in New Zealand basketball circles. More to the point, everybody loved him for the passion and purpose he held for his sport that remained undimmed until his very last breath.
Steve McKean died aged 77 after a short battle with cancer in New Plymouth yesterday, immediately sending a city, a region, indeed an entire sport into mourning as they honoured the life and achievements of one of the greats of New Zealand coaching and a true icon of Kiwi basketball.
Not bad for a sharpshooting American who made his way by chance to New Zealand a halfcentury ago, in 1971, to link up with an Auckland club (CocaCola, the forerunners of the Ponsonby side that would enter the NBL in the mid-1980s) that had the bright idea of bringing out an import from the home of hoops to supplement its playing stocks.
McKean, who had bad ankles and a shot as pure as any in the game, was a pioneer, one of the early hired guns from the US who would eventually arrive in their droves to ply their trade. Bob South, a fellow San Jose State alum, was considered the first, and McKean followed soon after to stamp his indelible mark on a New Zealand basketball scene crying out for knowledge and ambition.
He didn’t last long with the well-tooled Coca-Cola club, departing after just a single season to set up across town at the Panmure Young Citizens Centre where he helped launch a successful programme under the Mount Wellington banner.
Though he was still a heck of a player when he first landed on New Zealand shores (‘‘he could flat out shoot the lights out,’’ noted one peer), it soon became obvious to him that coaching was where he could make his biggest mark. By 1972 he had been instilled as head coach of the New Zealand men’s national programme – a role he would undertake for a decade, and with no little success.
McKean’s crowning glory as a coach came in 1978 when his New Zealand men’s team – the forerunners of the Tall Blacks – defeated Australia for the first time in their history in Hutt Valley on a buzzer-beating tap-in from John Hill, the younger brother of Kiwi star Stan.
That result was widely acknowledged as the most significant in the sport’s history at the time and is to this day considered a key juncture in a hitherto one-sided trans-Tasman rivalry. And it was McKean who masterminded it. Or at the very least assembled, motivated and structured arguably the most
talented New Zealand lineup that had taken the court to climb their version of Everest. His strength, say his peers, was his ability to bring the best out of gifted players who enjoyed his direction and leadership.
He was, they say, a ‘‘player’s coach’’.
Keith Mair, who played against a young hotshot McKean in 1971, and would later succeed him as Tall Blacks coach, echoed the appraisal of him as a ‘‘player’s coach’’ who got the best out of talented performers.
‘‘He was probably New Zealand’s first legitimate national coach. We’ll always remember him for 1978 but his wider influence was huge and basketball was his life and passion. I sat next to him at a function last August and even then all he wanted to talk about was basketball,’’ Mair said.
Added Basketball NZ chief executive Iain Potter: ‘‘He’s an icon of our sport. He was part of a wonderful era and played a huge part in it. He knew that a big part of winning at the top level was believing you can win. And he helped us take a couple of big steps up that ladder.
‘‘The thing I enjoyed most about Coach was his relentless positivity. He never had a bad word to say about anyone, and thought everyone had something positive to offer. He impacted the sport in the best possible way.’’
McKean coached a decade in New Zealand’s NBL, first with Auckland and then with New Plymouth, was the first to notch 100 victories in the competition and was twice named its coach of the year.
He made New Plymouth his home from the late-80s and after winding down his coaching worked for nearly two decades as a tireless proponent for schools and community sport for Sport Taranaki.
He was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in 2012 for services to sport, picked up a lifetime achievement gong at the New Zealand Sport and Recreation Awards in 2016 and was an inaugural inductee in Basketball NZ’s Hall of Fame.
How much did he love his game? Even while battling cancer this year he was determined to do his bit on the panel picking the NBL’s 40in40 legends.
He is survived by his wife Rachel and daughter Naomi.