REX Nottage hopes he lit a fire in Tamworth on Sunday.
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Not your normal fire of course but a fire in the belly of about 20 basketball coaches.
Nottage, one of the country’s most respected and highly regarded and credentialed coaches, addressed a collection of young coaches at the Tamworth Sports Dome.
People such as former State League centre Andrew Chillingworth, former Newcastle Knights rugby league star Matt Parsons and Quirindi coach Terry Beresford.
They were all part of a session where Nottage “coached the coaches”.
“I hope that has lit a fire,” Nottage said after the session.
“Because I’d like to go boom when I come back later in the month.”
What he hopes to have done is ignite their passion to coach the game and teach the, young players in the teams they coach and that will allow him to take them to another level when he returns on March 16/17.
“I’m looking forward to that,” he said as he headed to another session of coaching Tamworth’s young junior basketballers.
He had just finished imparting his “declogged” philosophy on the game.
As a younger man and coach he had chased after coaches around the world he thought were the best.
All it did, he said, was clog his mind with too many theories, plays and ideas about the game.
More recently he has been able to simplify it all into eight easy points, four in offence and four in defence.
“I had to declog my mind, ” he said.
“Got to keep it simple.”
Greg O’Toole is the TBA’s coaching director.
He has known Nottage for more than a quarter of a century and first met him when he attended a coaching camp as a young 17-year-old basketball guard.
O’Toole was quick on his feet in those days and also quick enough in the mind to know what Nottage was selling then was going to help him be a much better player and person.
It is still relevant.
Work hard, train hard, practise the fundamentals and work on your skills.
All simple stuff but still the “magic formula” from yesteryear that works today.
“Rex makes it special and motivates, ” O’Toole said.
“He’s been fantastic to me. He’s been everywhere and coached all over the world. He’s been a coach at North Carolina and with the Indiana Pacers in the NBA, all over Europe and extensively through Australia and here he is putting it back in at the grass roots level. Fantastic for us to have him and then to be able to get him back later this month too.”
Greg O’Toole is not only focused on improving Tamworth basketball but hopes the likes of Gunnedah, Armidale and Inverell can be helped and promoted as well.
“The benefit of having someone of Rex’s calibre here means we can work on the
fundamentals.”
For Nottage it’s not about winning any more it’s about playing better and the best you can by training as well as you can.
Keep it simple stupid (KISS) is a key adage.