Look at this way. The number of coaching and support staff at state and national level is quite low - probably less than 100. And these positions are valued given they represent professional $ (not great $ but $ nonetheless) in our great sport.

So turnover is low with insiders and incumbents strongly favoured to gain positions. This is a feature I have commented on numerous occasions which has received a lot of legitimate push back from many in the hoops community.

So to assert that people other than whites are shut out because of colour strikes me (as a white male) to be....partly right - but I reckon the overwhelming factor at work, is the lack of turnover.

If I am right then the solution starts at the level of local association clubs, where players, coaches and administrators get their start. At the local association level these factors of insider networks and incumbency is amplified.

Basketball here in Oz will always be plagued by grassroots providing the dollars for the rest of the pathway and organizations.

When you need more money to climb the pathway ladder (be apart of VJBL or make State Teams) that eliminates a certain fraction of society and thus will be underrepresented the higher on the totem pole we go.

Basketball here in Oz, whether rightly or wrongly is geared towards middle-high income families, due to the constant outlay of money needed year round to participate.

I don't believe for a second there is any sort of systemic racism here to keep people out of key positions/teams as we all would love to provide opportunities to anyone who has potential to go above and beyond in our sport administratively or playing wise, no matter where they are from or look like.

To me money and the lack of funding from BA down towards the grassroots is the underlying issue here.

It's the same story again and again. White people make up somewhere between 65 and 70 percent of the population of the country. It shouldn't be an absolute shock that they dominate in certain fields - they remain the vast majority.

And if certain groups underperform, it doesn't HAVE to be because the evil white people are holding them back. It could be some of their own issues that they as a group need to address. We just had someone mention turning up to training being an issue. Is Captain Cook to blame for that, is he? Stolen generation?

I think we all know that money means something in our basketball community. If you can't pay 500 a season for district, you're probably not going to develop into much of a player. But this being spun as a race problem is just absurd and just a symptom of a media and social climate where everything has to be called racist.

"Given the number of Sudanese kids that are in the NBL or College, is it really that racist?"

The language is clearly over the top, but pointing to kids succeeding is not proof that inequality does not exist. It simply shows they succeeded in spite of it.

What is equality in this context?

Representation based on what?

Percentage of race of the general population, then apply that percentage to basketball?

Agreed ME

Surely they are only referring to off-court/coaching/administration.

To claim this applies on court/in the NBL is laughable.

Most of the NBL referees are white. Is that a problem too?

I also agree with ME. It sounds like some one trying to get some publicity.

From having coached indigenous players in two countries, some things stand out for me in keeping indigenous players from dominating down under:
- it costs money and often requires transport, which many don't have, and there aren't a lot of scholarships on offer down under
- it requires discipline and a sense of responsibility to turn up to training and games, week after week, on time
- it requires discipline and a degree of maturity to stand still, listen, and follow the coach's instructions at training and games; in other words, for the player to put away their ego in order to fit in with the coaching, administration, etc, rather than the other way round
- training isn't always FUN but it's usually NECESSARY in order to advance teamwork and a common playing style

Many of those I've coached have been very talented at 'schoolyard ball' but just didn't have the discipline or IQ or desire to be coached in 'orthodox basketball' which were needed.

I think I'm a fairly positive easy-going coach, but I've been annoyed when players miss most training sessions during a season with no reasons given, even as far as turning up to a grand final after half-time (after switching off their phones when we tried to find out where they were)!!
I've also had players torch their competition at trials and then flat-out refuse to train once they were selected. (At which point they were quickly un-selected.)

There's some unfortunate assumptions and stereotypes being bandied about in this thread. Indigenous kids have barriers in many aspects of daily life but good coaches and administrators understand the complexities and can overcome them. Putting so called ingrained behaviour into the too hard basket is lazy and ignorant.

Notice how no one is having a whinge about the NBA's diversity problem? In the NBA, 13 percent of the population make up 80 percent of the players. Where's the representation in that?

Just seems to me this representation stuff is extremely selective. If black people succeed and are overrepresented, it's god-given talent, how dare we ever question it. If white people do it, it simply must be institutionalized racism, unconscious bias, this, that and the other.

These assertions they're making, without any real fact to back them, are straight out offensive. Do they really think an uber-talented black kid is being overlooked because the coach wants a Brendan Teys instead?

Seriously, get real.

"Is Captain Cook to blame for that, is he? Stolen generation?

Fuck off ME you racist twat."


You're literally proving my point. Everything is racism to people like you, even if it clearly isn't.

The article should have been an exposé on BA and their continual mismanagement of the sport in this country rather than using the r topic as it's centrepiece for click bait purposes. Such a missed opportunity. RIP journalism.

ME, I think it's pretty clear the USA has better basketball resources overall ensuring good players don't get lost to the sport. It's not based on race, it's based on resources, money and interest. Even AFL in Australia doesn't have either the resources or desire to be successful in recruiting indigenous players from remote communities. It's basically in the too hard basket. Easier to recruit Americans and Irish who never played the game. I believe this points to a bigger issue that is not limited to football.

The 'bigger issue' is that it costs money to play sports in Australia. There's an elitist issue in sport in Australia, not necessarily a racist one.

I know plenty of kids I went to school with who could play the game, but they went nowhere because they couldn't afford to play district. Would they have gone pro? Well.. I don't really know. We never got to find out. Maybe they wouldn't have. But they didn't even go on to get entry-level training because the fees were too high.

They were white kids, by the way...

", that their Timmy should play more minutes because he showed more commitment. Timmy had Daddy drive them in air conditioned car while the black kid caught a train, 2 buses and had to run for 20 minutes to try and get to training on time."

Whether or not this story is true, the issue is financial and not necessarily that the kid was black. Doesn't really need "cultural training" if someone who is financially disadvantaged cant make training. It needs a little bit of "help the kid out" training regardless of colour.

"
There are genuine barriers to indigenous participation in sport and society, but that doesn't mean the institution is racist and that the high representation of one race means it’s racist. I think this shortcut some people increasingly have of reaching that conclusion is lazy and ultimately unhelpful to reducing real inequities."

Absolutely it was lazy journalism, not really looking any deeper than they needed to to call it racist.

Anon 777, I agree there are heaps of instances such as you mention, and I also was pissed off when that tournament was cancelled. I love the contribution that our indigenous and recent immigrants bring..

Some corrections for you
1. Re the kid refusing to train after being selected - you weren't there, I was. It happened.
2. Re kids being late to training and to the GF - in my particular case, they lived next to the stadium, and that was the reason we chose to train there. Before the season, they committed to the team rules along with the rest of the squad. They just didn’t deliver.

Nuff said.

"No ME, someone who continually dismissing actual historical events like the stolen generation for example doesn't get to mock those events to try and make a point that nothing is ever the fault of white people. You're a racist, always have been, always will be."


Wow you sound like an absolute moron. I didn't mock those events, I simply mocked the want people have to blame those things on everything going on in the Aboriginal community. And I didn't say 'nothing' is the fault of white people, I've simply been saying not fucking 'everything' is the fault of white people. You take things to the extreme because you're too stupid to comprehend nuance.


"Whenever the issue of race is raised here there is always one particular poster leaping eagerly to defend the honour of white people and find every possible other excuse for unbalanced treatment and representation. I am thankful that we have heroes like him to remind us that racial bias of any kind does not exist in Australia and we must resist entertaining any suggestions to the contrary.
PS. Go Kings"

Massive YAWN on this one. Some article spouting unverified garbage that doesn't look any deeper than their first possible, knee-jerk "everything is racist any time there isn't perfect representation" assumption, is dropped, and when I don't fall to the floor and scream tears of white guilt about these stupid, half-baked, and completely skewed claims, I am somehow the asshole.
Jog on mate!

"Exactly. Every damn time.

But he's not racist..."

Could it be that I am just sick of everything being called racist? Nah... couldn't be that. If I dont think everything is racist, I must be racist.

"" I am thankful that we have heroes like him to remind us that racial bias of any kind does not exist in Australia and we must resist entertaining any suggestions to the contrary."

1. That's obviously not correct.
2. Quote where he wrote that."

As I said, these idiots take everything to the extreme. If you dont believe a few things are racist, then you must believe nothing is racist, and therefore you're a racist. It's really a grade-school level of logic they're operating with. I've provided a simple and plausible alternative to their argument (ie, financial and not racial issue) yet they've totally disregarded to shreik like banshees about completely unverifiable claims of racism.

"Hmm, I wonder if systemic racism has contributed to financial inequality...:

Haha yeah, so we will just go find some back doors to call things racist, shall? "Oh, well we couldn't call basketball directly racist, so let's call financial inequality racist, and then rather than just being hard for poor kids to play basketball we can still infer that all the structures of basketball are therefore racist. Go us!" People like you are MORONS.

This is very much a regional story. I have no idea about the situation in - say - Coffs Harbour vs Sydney Vs Hawthorn Vs Perry Lakes. So I think we need to be careful not to map conditions we find in one place onto another.

A big obstacle for development of indigenous talent in NSW metro is that venues in regions where indigenous people reside tend to be located in areas which really only suit car transport. Here I include Penrith, Bankstown, Hills, Blue Mountains. In other areas like Sydney. Hornsby, Manly, Norths - access is better, but there is not the numbers, the population concentrations are white, stable households which provide support (transport, food preparation, decent schools). The comets in Sydney are an exception - they appear to me to have a vibrant community of players from all sorts of backgrounds. Good for them.

Economic and social disadvantage in basketball will only be amplified if we defund the association model and rely increasingly on private schools, which I fear is where we are heading. You will get the odd talented indigenous person arising through the private school system, but stars arise from a mass of participation, and the association model makes basketball affordable to most. Need to think of what works for the many, rather than overhype individual stories of success.

Here's a tip. If a URL includes DailyMail, don't waste your time visiting it.
They're a troll of the news industry, with one hand overhyping things for clicks & reactions, and the other hand lamenting that people get so outraged.

BA has already admitted that it could do better. That doesn't mean we're heading for the next holocaust but it also doesn't mean that everything is 100% fine and we should dismiss any question of race being a factor.

Now we are talking about the branding of cheese. This thread has descended into the usual culture war where people are talking past each other. I endorse Luuuc's post and add that this thread has become a waste of time. Time to move on.

2 things that stood out to me in the article were the comments about casual racism and the whole old boys things. In regards to the casual racism (or racial insensitivity) obviously this is a societal issue, but coming from the article it made it seem that BA itself has an organisational level issue when it comes to dealing with race related matters which is sad to hear especially as party mills has currently been our star player for the last like 3 Olympics. As for the old boys thing I mean idk if that's purely a race issue. If I recall correctly there’s a stat that basically says that majority of jobs (something like 70%) aren’t actually publicly advertised and instead to get said jobs it requires being in the know, so I’d suggest this would apply to BA also, and although it’s not a race related issue it still isn’t a good thing that this happens.

The article also mentions 12 recommendations but doesn’t seem to directly state them but obviously a big one that would help aboriginal people would be more of an effort made by BA for programs on a groundwork’s basis something like mills has started but nation wide as unfortunately due to the disadvantages aboriginal people are at compared to white people (percentage rate wise not strictly population) they are in a lot of cases lacking compared to that of the everyday white person (I.e. less household income, lower education rates, higher rates of health issues (obesity and heart problems being the big ones I believe along with lower life expectancy) etc). Therefore in order to see more participation it would require greater efforts on a community basis for this to happen as unfortunately there are such discrepancies on an everyday basis which leads to such issues of participation in the first place.

Hmmm. Not sure where to go with this. My (extremely white) son has been playing for a Sudanese-dominated Sydney club for the past few years. Great kids, good coaches. I have personally witnessed a great deal of racism towards them, some of which has left me shocked (a group of adults calling an u14 team a "pack of f*ckin' m*nkeys" was the low point).

But it has never, ever been from an organisation level. Always from officials/parents of other teams. Amusingly, in my experience so far (middle aged white guy), the majority of the racism has come from other migrant groups!

As has been stated above, the real sticking point is coaching. To truly get the skills needed to move to next level, you need regular 1-on-1 training. A kid in Blacktown with parents who can just about get him through a season of club basketball cant do that. Nor, in many cases, can they afford the $1500-odd per season that rep cost including travel and uniforms.

So how can BNSW (or BA) change that? No idea. That seems like a hell of a lot of money that the game simply doesn't have.

I am not saying that racism doesn't exist, it does without a doubt. I am saying there are much larger issues at player here for kids with talent.

"There are genuine barriers to indigenous participation in sport."

There are barriers in a selection of sports, but not all. The NRL has around 13% Aboriginal players. Lower leagues have even higher percentages. The AFL isn't far behind.

The guy who mentioned car transport - mate, what planet are you on? Koori and Murri families drive our kids all over NSW, QLD and VIC for football, athletics and netball.

Aboriginal families engage in basketball and then withdraw to our own knockout tournaments when its shown that the sport's participants hold a considerable amount of prejudice against us(at least comparatively when examined against rugby league and AFL. The same problem exists in netball.

It's not a black/white thing. There's plenty of ignorance that comes from white people, Africans and all kinds of people when it comes to Aboriginal people and our culture. I wouldn't class it as racism - it's just what we see here - this thread is a great example of how so many people reckon they know all about the why and the how of Aboriginal people, yet are absolutely talking out of their mooms. Why the hell would we want to spend our time putting up with that to any larger degree? My kids play. They are getting an introduction to the sport, along with other sports, but when they get older (13-14) they will start to hear and notice the prejudice as it develops among those in their age bracket and they simply won't want to be around it and will simply choose a safer, smarter, more balanced environment. They will ditch the cricket and basketball and the only time they will bother with either again is in playing tournaments with their family and their community.

"J could you please explain the prejudice aboriginal athletes families face in basketball?"

Basketball, despite a lot of black (African) kids and adults playing the game in Australia, is like a number of other sports, in that it has little history of inclusivity with Aboriginal people. It was very much a white game until 30 years ago (give or take a few years). A few others have called it an elitist game. There is an element of that, but the reality is that anyone can play it.

Only a few people in the Aboriginal community have a history with basketball. There is nothing to call on. No fondness. No connection. The idea that Aboriginal kids should play it isn't even a thing usually. Basketball just like cricket and rugby union fails because it has very little history of extending a hand and saying "you're welcome". Where rugby league and Aussie rules both succeeded is that their inclusivity came very early on, and even where there were exclusions, or that Aboriginal people felt the prejudices were too great, they set up their own leagues and clubs. Redfern All Blacks in rugby league and Fitzroy Stars in Aussie rules etc. It's also what provided for Patty Mills, with the Shadows club.

Where people have very little interaction with Aboriginal people, a lot of really ignorant stuff is said, and often. Having to hear that from your children's teammates, or their parents, or the parents of opposing teams - it's just not worth it, when there are a lot of other viable options.

My kids are of ages where it's not happening yet. But it will, and when it does - we'll move on.

To J: I appreciate your posts even though you roast me as an ignoramus who posts public comments nonetheless. So here is another one!
I have no intention of appropriating an Aboriginal voice - I merely comment on what I see and have experienced. And this is a basketball chat forum, which is informal in character, but where good public manners should apply.
I have been a bi-racial marriage for 30+ years and I have 3 kids running through junior programs in a full-on Ango region in NSW. My kids are often considered islander. 2 things I have noticed as an ignorant Anglo male - first, it takes just one dickhead in a hundred to ruin your kid's impression of themselves and whether they are welcome in the sport; second, gestures matter, so I am receptive to your message of "extending a hand" to make people of non dominant backgrounds welcome to the sport. This I might add most strongly applies to Asian players, who have been overlooked in this thread and, who - in my region at least - have playing numbers low relative to their population share, and who are not represented in any position of authority, whether it be coaching or in admin.
As regards to my prior comments on transport, I have in mind the situation of a promising junior from an African background, who lived out of region and was promised support from a dickhead coach who subsequently "forgot" his prior assurances, leaving the junior stranded once training had finished around 9pm at a remote school in the middle of winter. This happened on several occasions. And this particular junior would attend state trials, once arriving into a packed hall an hour or so late, because the junior - unlike everyone else - had to rely on public transport on a Sunday morning to get to Minto.
As regards to your comments for encouraging your kids to move on - which i find understandable. I don't expect you to agree with me here - but I have spent about 20 years of my working life in Asia - most of that time playing ball casually or coaching or supporting my kids in the sport. If there is just one feature about the character of Australians when it comes to sport - the thing that differentiates them from Singaporeans or Hong Kongers or Chinese - is that they place a greater value of widening participation and inclusion. And as a people they are prepared to make key decisions to back this up. We see it in the dominance of the taxpayer subsidized associations in junior sport and the provision of taxpayer funded sporting halls. There is much underfunding going on. And we can do better, as your posts cogently point out.