Quality, not quantity for Hoop Club

The Eastbourne Hoop Club ramped up for another winter season on May 15th, with organiser, Rodger Thompson, saying that numbers will be limited to 100 spots this year.

Rodger says that ideally he’d love to have more kids attend (two years ago the number was 150), but the organising committee have decided that it should be based more around giving a lesser number more in terms of quality coaching and as an experience.

“For us, it’s all about managing numbers,” Roger says. “We haven’t done much by way of promotion this year, it’s been mostly return kids and word of mouth. We feared that we’d be inundated and numbers would explode!”

The Hoop Club meet every Saturday afternoon at Wellesley College, where four sessions are run. Rodger and Bradley Allen are assisted by 12 youth coaches and Rodger says that it is fantastic to watch those young people develop their coaching skills and gain in self confidence from it.

Rodger says that Wellesley College becoming available as a venue was critical to the success of the club.

“Not having to drive into the Hutt Valley was a big thing for local enthusiasts,” he said. “Suddenly, basketball was just three or four minutes down the road. Wellesley have been fantastic to us and we owe them due gratitude.”

In keeping with national trends - and in many cases, international - basketball is one of the fastest growing sports in Aotearoa, let alone little ol’ Eastbourne. Participant wise, only football and touch rugby come anywhere near team sport numbers attributed to basketball in this country.

“Statistics reveal that the sport is now the biggest by participant at secondary school level also,” Rodger says. “Although not available yet, I’m picking the recent survey done at primary schools will reveal the same.”

“The success of Steven Adams has given the sport a higher profile,” he adds, “not forgetting that of our own local hero, Stella Beck. Hoop Club member, Rufus RusholmeCobb should also be congratulated on making the New Zealand U17 trial in February. An inspiration to all Eastbourne ‘ballers in how you play and your commitment to keep improving and developing your craft.”

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