Open Looks by John Saker

Author:John Saker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Awa Press

Pre-game prep. Photographer unknown

Tall Black Debut

They weren’t the Tall Blacks when I first played for them. They were the New Zealand national basketball team. I’ve long been sceptical about branding, that half-lit voodoo corner of the communications world. And I’ve never liked the corniness of the name Tall Blacks, and the way it leans heavily on rugby for effect. But there’s no denying “I was a Tall Black” resonates more than “I was a member of the New Zealand national basketball team”.

My first game was in Christchurch at the height of the 1974–75 summer. To its astonishment, basketball had been chosen as one of only two team sports (the other was water polo) included in that “think big” Kiwi sporting adventure, the New Zealand Games.

Looking back, what a cocksure little nation we were in those days. The ’74 Commonwealth Games had left us in no doubt as to our worth as an international sports impresario, so we did it all again the following year, only this time we invited the world.

At the Ilam games village the 1975 Tall Blacks mingled with American sprinters, Iranian weightlifters, Russian water polo players and Finnish discus throwers. It was as close to an Olympic experience as we got back then.

My 19-year-old eyes took in meetings and moments with high-res fidelity, recording scenes that even now refuse to fade. There was the veteran US sprinter Martha Watson at breakfast one morning, hand on hip, afro tamed in a topknot, laughing off having to compete the same day she stepped off the plane.

“Honey,” she declared, “jus’ gimme a few more hours’ sleep and I’ll bring some smoke to that tartan!”

Another morning I passed the Yugoslav water polo team lolling in the sun, looking like toppled classical marbles. They were huge men. Tall Black captain John Macdonald said under his breath, “I bet they’re all on steroids.” It was the first time I’d ever heard the word. Not wanting to appear ignorant I nodded silently.

Joining us in the basketball tournament were Australia, the Philippines and Tahiti. A hometown draw had us opening gently against the French Polynesians on the first night. The first game, a curtain-raiser of Australia vs the Philippines, was still in progress when we arrived at Cowles Stadium and we stopped to watch the last few minutes. It went down to the wire. With less than 15 seconds left on the clock Australia was leading by one and the Philippines had the ball. More precisely, William Adornado had the ball. Known as Mr Basketball in his home country, at that time Asia’s most powerful basketball nation, Adornado was a shooting guard and your archetypal go-to guy—fearless, with unlimited self-belief.

He drove down from the wing and pulled up at the baseline. The Aussie defender had stuck to him like a leech. Too much like a leech thought the referee, who called the foul as an airborne Adornado uncorked an unsuccessful fadeaway jump shot.

Adornado stepped to the line for a pair of free throws. He nailed the first, tying the score.

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