Heat is on as Alaska-born Bailey chases glory night in Glasgow

THE unforgiving chill in rural Alaska can plummet to an unimaginable 62 degrees below zero.

‘During the winter, you really don’t go outside unless you’re really an outdoors kind of guy,’ Jeremiah Bailey smiles. ‘You’ve got to make sure you got your snow pants, your heavy duty coat, maybe a parka. Your snow boots, your gloves. Maybe your dog sled.’

Given that the Caledonia Gladiators forward grew up just 200km south of the Arctic Circle, harnessing husky power may not be a tease. Yet, by his own confession, he is not cut from the cloth of Bear Grylls. The wilderness forced him into a pursuit that has served him well. ‘The cold, that’s what drove me towards basketball — because it’s indoors.’

Who knew that Glasgow could seem a balmy tropic?

His home from home is the venue for today’s BBL Trophy final in which Scotland’s only professional men’s team — formerly known as Glasgow Rocks — will attempt to pick up its first silverware in 20 years by defeating the holders, Cheshire Phoenix.

The sport offers the 24-year-old a world of opportunity. Schooling in the sunnier climes of Arizona and California. Now a career overseas. A destiny radically transformed, he suggests. ‘Basketball saves a lot of lives,’ he reflects. ‘It kept me out of trouble.

‘It helped me change my immaturity, growing up through high school. And it’s still helping me now, shaping the man that I am, and my career. And helping me connect with a bunch of different people in this world called life.’

The fusions between the American and his Gladiators colleagues will factor heavily in this afternoon’s duel. Two evenly matched sides, it could be classic.

Caledonia’s coach Gareth Murray brings learnings from repeated disappointment as a player. Featuring in most of the ten finals in succession in which the Scots have emerged as runners-up, the 38-year-old has shared the painful history as motivation but also wiped that board clean.

‘One of the great things is having someone like Gareth who played here and was able to help a lot of guys learn,’ says Bailey, who understands that the nature of the basketball universe is that he will likely move on come the summer, to another place, another climate. It makes the sport ‘a love-hate relationship,’ he nods. He is driven, though, to pocket a shiny memento with a triumph today.

‘You can’t play sport at a high level, if you don’t understand there will be a winner and a loser,’ he says. ‘And more times than not, you want to be the winner.’