rage Wiis June 20; 1990. This Week

SPORTS

|

Canada’s national basketball team

making itself at home in Victoria

By BILL KENNEDY

hut next to a tennis

court on the campus

of the University of

Victoria is the last

place you would expect the

Canadian National Team, in

any sport, to make its head-

quarters. Most sports in

_ Canada, after all, are run out

of Ottawa or, occasionally,
Toronto. But Victoria?

That was the general
response from the Canadian
sporting establishment when
Basketball Canada announced
that men’s national team
would be centered in Victoria.

“There wasn’t, “We can’t
allow that to happen, ” says
John Affleck, the team’s busi-
ness manager, of the response.
“It was more like, “You know
it’s not going to work.’ ”

Affleck works under coach
and general manager Ken
Shields, handling any day to
day matters which may come
up. Part of his responsibility is
to make sure the move to the
West Coast, a condition
Shields set upon taking the
coaching position, is a success.

Affleck says that the support
in the city has been great and
that there has been no
shortage of people coming for-
ward to help out during the
bumpy adjustment phase.

“Victoria is very sports-
oriented and the people have
been very supportive. A great
core of volunteers have come
out. Without them we wouldn't
have survived the last month.”

During the last month, the
national team has had to deal
with a new coach in a new
home, and somehow find time
to prepare for this summer’s
World Championships, where
Canada is grouped with the
Soviets and the hosts, Argen-
tina.

The biggest problem, though,
has been the simple mechanics
of getting the players, spread
across North America, in one
spot. Today, Affleck has spend
all day on the phone arranging

travel plans. The team left this
morning for a series of games
in the Interior against the
evangelical Christian team,
Athletes In Action (AJA). One
of his players is in Salt Lake
City, on personal business, and
it is up to Affleck to make sure
heis in Kamloops this evening.

“It’s a challenge trying to get
the kids to camp,” he admits.
Another player, Rick Fox, said

As luck would have it, the
move to the Coast comes at a
time when the western schools
are doing well. UVic has
proved it can survive the loss
of Shields, while the Univer-
sity of British Columbia and
Simon Fraser University are
both on the rise. In Canada’s
last home game, against AIA,
eight of the 14 players that
night were from the B.C.

As part of the restructuring,
the other national programs
were reorganized just as the
men’s program had been. The
junior team was moved to
Lethbridge while the student
team remained in Ontario.
The women’s program has set
up shop in Toronto.

By working out of three dif-
ferentregions, Affleck feels the
national program will develop

ITS NOT ALL SWEAT and frenzy. Sometimes, members of the Men’‘s National Basketball team
watch and listen-- especially when a coach or assistant points out what might become a

game-saving play.

to be one of Canada’s top
player, is at the University of
North Carolina, taking a sum-
mer course, and “five or six”
others have yet to appear.

Surprisingly, the new loca-
tion and its distance from the
population centres in the East
have little to do with the travel
problems. Canada’s top ball
players never consistently
come from one area of the
country, explains Affleck, but
instead come from various
regions, almost in waves.

Moving a program to be
where the most players are
would be futile.

“They say the next bunch of

good young players is coming -

from the Maritimes.”

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schools, five from UVic.

The main reason for the
move, and the re-structuring
of Basketball Canada, was the
appointment of Shields to suc-
ceed Jack Donahue as team
coach. When Basketball
Canada officials first started
negotiating with Shields a
year ago, he described his
vision of what the national
program should be.

While Shields felt that the
team had done well in the past,
says Affleck, he thought the
program was limited in whatit
could achieve based in Ottawa
under the existing system.
What the team needed were
people dedicated solely to the
national team program, work-
ing underneath a general
manager with full control.

At the time Shields was also
UVic’s athletic director and
the relocation to Victoria was
necessary if the program was
to be revamped under his su-
pervision. Basketball Canada
had no problems with the
move, given Shield’s roots in
the city and his knowledge of
the Victoria sports community.

When he was forced to resign
the athletic director’s position,
there was no change in plans.
In the spring, the team moved
to Victoria, with Shields as
coach and general manager.
One of the first people he took
on was Affleck, whom he had
known since 1974 and who
had himself coached at SFU
and been the athletic director
at the University of
Lethbridge.

nation-wide support and
receive three times the
amount ofmedia attention. —

The exchange is not one-
sided, though, and Victoria
does have plenty to gain from
the national team’s presence,
both economically and in in-
tangibles. Affleck says all the
team’s business is now hand-
led in Victoria and will pump
revenue into the local
economy. The team’s travel
budget alone could be as high
as $400,000 this year.

While Victoria has always
been known across the country
as a sports-minded town, the
Canadian team could help fur-
ther raise the city’s image.

“J like to think Ken Shields
has put Victoria on the map
nationally, now he has a

chance to do it international-
ly,” says Affleck.

Jim Hayes is the acting ath-
letic director at UVic until a
replacement for Shields is
found. He agrees the national
team calling Victoria home
will be good for both the city
and the university.

“There's always a benefit of
having a national team as-
sociated with the university,”
he says. “It raises our profile.”

The National Coaching In-
stitute, which runs most of its
programs during the school
year, benefits the most of any
group at UVic. With the com-
ing of summer the institute
usually finds itself with an

| _ empty office, while Basketball

Canada had personnel but
nowhere to work out of after
the move west.

It didn’t take a stroke of
genius to realize that each
group was in a position to help
the other. The team now
shares quarters with the Na-
tional Coaching Institute, its
people manning the phones
and staffing the office for the
institute at the same time. It
is, in Affleck’s words, the ideal
partnership.

With any luck, the partner-
ship will be dissolved by Sep-
tember. The search is already
on for a more permanent home
for the team. As the drive for
sponsors picks up, Affleck
hopes a corporation may come
forward with more to con-

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tribute than money. He is@ ‘|

hoping to come across a com-
pany which has unneeded of-
fice space but is locked into a
long-term lease.

In return, Basketball
Canada has personnel who are

ready to help out around the

office, should the need arise.
Such a deal, suggests Affleck,
would be even more useful to
the team than monetary gifts.
For the time being, things
are fine the way they are. The
basketball community, he
says, is pleased with the move
and there will be plenty of
time, at least until the 1996
Olympics, to get settled.

SS

REACHING FOR THE TOP, the National Basketball team copes. —

with a series of difficult moves. Players deal wiih On-Couri
plays, but someone else has the hassles of organizing a very

mobile team. (Photos by GEORGE LEE)

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