Ness Leading New Standards as WA Wheelchair Basketballers Prepare for New Season

When Perth hosts this weekend’s opening cluster-round of the 2018 National Wheelchair Basketball League, it will similarly herald a new dawn for the sport in this state.

Late last year, the Western Australian Institute of Sport launched a Wheelchair Basketball program, with Paralympic legend Brad Ness appointed as inaugural coach in early 2018. It represented the very first specialised Paralympic sports program in the organisation’s three decade history.

With the program itself, just three months in infancy, Ness believes the green shoots of progress are already manifest.

With 13 athletes on scholarship, split across two NWBL teams (Perth Wheelcats and Red Dust Heelers), the five-time Paralympic representative admits he threw down the gauntlet to his athletes ahead of the new competition season.

“I won’t say it has been a shock to them, but I don’t think they expected it to be quite as demanding,” Ness said of the preparatory training regime.

“We put together a 10 week pre-season block and with help of Goodsy (WAIS Physiologist Paul Goods) and the Big Woo (WAIS Strength and Conditioning Coach Adam Wolski), we sort of just showed them what could be done and gave them some fence posts to aim at,” he said.

With testing conducted this week ahead of the competition launch, the numbers largely made for positive reading. Ness said that whilst that was validation for him and his conditioning team, it was more specifically eye-opening for the athletes themselves.

“They’re now starting to see what they put in, they get back,” he said.

But like any new program, the 2008 Beijing Paralympic gold medal winning captain said that it had taken time and effort to bring his charges up to speed, particularly in the transition from individual athlete preparation, to a squad based high performance program.

“The big challenge for me has been getting the athletes to put the program first so to speak. That’s why they’re there, that’s what they’re chasing – that Australian singlet. It doesn’t come lightly and if they can put the program first, knowing that they’ve got the full assistance of WAIS behind them, then that challenge becomes clearer.”

In his own athlete days, Ness was renowned for his work ethic and he admits at times, it has challenged his mind set, particularly as a rookie coach, to learn how to cajole younger and less experienced athletes to buy-in to the training culture that he demands.

“It’s been frustrating, knowing what I sacrificed and put in, I suppose, to get to the top and at the start, probably not having that same automatic buy-in,” Ness said.

“I was finding it difficult to think, why wouldn’t you want to utilise every single second that’s being put on the table for you? And that’s been a big challenge for me, not to let that frustration come out and jeopardise someone’s pathway at the moment. That’s been a big learning curve.”

But in learning his own craft, Ness suggests that he’s found new ways to approach the sport now that he is on the opposite side of the paint.

“At the moment I’m learning and will always continue to learn. But in giving them the space at the start, I’m now seeing three months in, the difference in the attitudes. I never used to get smiles at the start. At a 6.30am conditioning session there were no smiles, now they’re there, they’re all ready to go, everyone’s punctual. It’s great.”

“The communication level is up, we’re starting to see that it’s becoming its own little squad, even though we don’t get to play as a team,” Ness said. “We’re starting to see those changes, in terms of those mannerisms of the players.”

Competition for the 2018 NWBL season commences this afternoon at the Bendat Basketball Centre in Floreat before heading to the newly completed Cockburn ARC facility across Saturday and Sunday. There is even speculation that a retired International great, might take the court for the Red Dust Heelers?

“There might be a guest appearance from a certain ex-player,” Ness said with a wicked smile. “I might have to get out there to fill the numbers and that’s because all the teams are light on this weekend due to some athletes being overseas and playing in the American University and College leagues.”

Whilst the natural talent still runs abound, the old-stager did confirm that his recovery is not quite as rehearsed as it once was.

“Look, once you’re a baller, you’re always a baller and I did enjoy having a bit of a push around on Saturday (training), but I didn’t enjoy Sunday, waking up feeling like a truck had run over me.”