A chat with CEO Larry Sengstock

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy's View from Downunder) - With sports like cricket, Australia rules football, tennis, golf, soccer, netball and both rugby codes all vying for large chunks of the sporting public and media’s attention, Basketball Australia CEO Larry Sengstock and his team have a tough job on their hands.

Mr Sengstock was kind enough to chat to me about the various challenges and successes of the sport he loves.

Me: Both the men’s and women’s teams qualified for the Olympics, how important is that for basketball in Australia?

Larry Sengstock: It’s absolutely important. For us to be seen as a major sport and attract kids to play, we need to be at the Olympics because it separates us from a lot of other team sports in Australia. It’s also extremely important as far as our funding from the government is concerned.

Once all Australian teams were expected to be top four in major tournaments, but the international landscape has changed a lot. How does that affect funding?

That’s part of the trick with the government, explaining what success means. When our teams have some great results but lose one game where they don’t play well, we need to explain what that means. Did their performance drop or was it one game where things didn’t work out? That’s what we had to do after the women’s world championships.

What were your thoughts on the Opals performance in 2010?

Really it was just one game that let us down against the Czech Republic, but then the girls fought it out to get fifth and I thought that was pretty impressive.

So you see that as an aberration heading into London?

We’re legitimately in the best countries, we’ve got silver at the past three Olympics, gold at the 2006 world championships, so we should be looking at a gold medal. The Laurens (Jackson), Pennys (Taylor) and Kristies (Harrower) are still there and playing well, then you add some of the new ones and the ingredients are there.

What about the WNBL, are you happy with how that competition assists the Opals?

It’s been fantastic over the years, from that we’ve been able to get so much success with the Opals because players can go straight from the WNBL and compete extremely well at the international level. And this year is the best we’ve had for many years because so many Opals are playing in the lead-up to the Olympics.

What would be a successful Olympics for the Boomers?

I think they’ve got to get into the top eight and give themselves a real opportunity to get into the top four. If we can get the whole squad together and play to our potential in all of our games we are a legitimate medal chance. In the past, for as long as I remember, there have been one or two games where we don’t play to our potential and that hurts us.

You have a General Manager of High Performance, Stephen Icke, what does his role entail?

He manages the entire program, all the national team coaches answer to him, the Australian Institute of Sport program, all the junior programs and national junior championships answer to him. His job is to make sure the government funding is well used.

How do you gauge how successful that role is?

It’s really the success all the way through, making sure our 17s and 19s, men’s, women’s and wheelchair teams have the success that we expect, whether that’s success in terms of medals or development. Those goals are set by our High Performance Commission that he answers to.

Australia has just one junior world championship medal in nine years, is that cause for concern?

That’s something we’re trying to get our head around right now, whether winning a medal is the be-all and end-all at the junior level, or whether it’s about making sure they get the experiences and refinement of their skills so we become even more successful in the senior ranks.

We want to make sure we give them every chance to win a medal, but not at the expense of bringing the right kids through to help them be as good as they can be.

How is the grassroots of basketball looking in Australia?

We are one of the highest participation sports with over a million people playing, and it’s part of the culture. For young people looking to play a sport in Australia basketball is part of the fabric. Now one of our challenges is to keep them playing longer, but the number of people who play basketball at some stage of their lives is extremely high.

Basketball has always been talked about as having great potential in Australia but with a gulf between the grassroots with the elite, how are you going about linking the two?

The WNBL is more linked to the community with the way it is structured, but certainly there is far more effort going into linking the NBL teams with the local and state associations.

What we are working really hard on is making sure kids see the pathway, see the opportunities to play, and that’s what the NBL is all about. NBL players have to do 150 hours per year each in community development work, and that’s pretty powerful.

NBL crowds are on target to be up more than 20 per cent over the past four years to 4200 per game, you must be happy with that steady progress?

That’s the whole thing, not to be too bold in what we are trying to do. It’s about consolidating progress we have made and continuing to build. There’s no point getting worried about not having a 100 per cent increase in a year. I am conservative. It’s about continuing to grow and rebuilding trust with the public.

Are you happy with the standard of the league?

I think the standard has taken a real lift. The level of American import we have has taken another lift, I think players realise now that you have to be a very good player to come and play here. The other thing is some of our players who have been to Europe are coming back. The Mark Worthingtons and Luke Nevills have chosen to play here, and that’s a gradual thing where I hope to get more of those players back.

Is it a good place for players from the national junior men’s team to develop?

I think that’s something we haven’t done well in the past, identify those players and get them into the NBL. When they go to college in the States they can get lost a bit, so we want to get better at identifying them early and getting them in the mix here. We’ve got to make sure we provide those opportunities.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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