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A spirited brekkie

IT might have been a Bendigo Spirit breakfast function, but it was also a more than appropriate backdrop for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank managing director Rob Hunt to this week talk up our community for its willingness to challenge existing paradigms.

Never one to miss an opportunity to talk up his home town, Mr Hunt spoke of Bendigo’s re-emergence as a “really vibrant force”.

For someone with just a few weeks left to go before a well-earned retirement, the only man to lead the Bendigo as a bank shows no signs of slowing down or giving up on his passions for the city he exudes so much passion for.

Perhaps the fact that his speech was much shorter than what we have become accustomed to over the years is a sign, or maybe it was just that Mr Hunt knew Jimmy Possum’s Margot Spalding was to follow him as a speaker.

For her part, Ms Spalding launched into a passionate defence of the role of women in business, the portrayal of women’s sport in the media and a precis of the imbalance in the reporting of male versus female sport.

Ms Spalding described the successful furniture and home decorating business she and husband Alan founded in a local shed, as a regional business with a national spread, while she perceived herself to be a “female leader in a man’s industry,” something she said brought with it many challenges.

But it’s her passion for basketball and women’s sport that really got Ms Spalding going, as she rattled off statistics that differentiate the coverage of sport on a gender basis.

Jimmy Possum became the inaugural naming rights sponsor of the Bendigo Spirit because the Spaldings have so much passion for the community, and admittedly, the family has enjoyed a close affinity with the game of basketball for many years. What many people did not know before this week’s breakfast though, was that Margot and Alan had not sought this sponsorship, had not committed any funds to the new franchise and had planned to say “No thanks” to Wendy James when she came to visit the Possum factory about three years ago.

It was only after Wendy, the part-time general manager, unloaded her passion and pride for basketball and Bendigo that the Spaldings realised the Bendigo Spirit was all about exactly that - the Bendigo spirit. And so Wendy James, the general manager who runs a national basketball franchise from a spare bedroom of her home, commanded the attention of everybody in the room as she poured out her passion and love of the Bendigo Spirit in a call to arms few could ignore.

Ms James said she simply wanted to catapult the team to where it wants to be, and where it needs to be, but without community support this would not happen.

In perhaps one of the great ironies of basketball in this country, last season’s monumental collapse of the men’s competition has had a severe impact on the WNBL, and the Bendigo franchise needs to prove it is financially viable before the end of June in order to be a part of the next season’s competition. Local sponsors need to step up, and local supporters need to turn up.

“There’s no guarantee Bendigo Spirit will be there, without the support of the community,” Ms James said, adding that the club that made the finals in just its second year in the highest level of competition in Australia, had been founded on the uniqueness of Bendigo.

Within two years, the Bendigo Spirit has achieved so much, both on and off the court.

After winning its opening game in the competition two seasons ago at the Schweppes Centre, the players chose to stay on court and sign autographs for their jubilant local supporters, deferring the much deserved team celebrations for later. That memory has stayed with me for the past two years.

It appeared to be unscripted, it was genuine, and it showed the importance of this community to the players.

A very young Kerryn Harrington made it onto the court for a few minutes’ game time to share a part of history. She’s now at the Institute of Sport in Canberra. Last year Olympian and world championship point guard Kristi Harrower played for the Spirit completely free. The team made the finals but eventually lost to Adelaide, a team that pays one of its star players more than the entire payroll of our home-grown Bendigo Spirit.

The club markets itself as the opportunity for local basketball players (Kristi Harrower being just one such example), to be part of an elite competition without having to leave home - it’s a team truly representative of our region. In a lot of ways, the Bendigo Spirit is a link between dreaming the dream and living it.

The WNBL rates the franchise as “one of the most professional and most respected clubs in the league”.

Now, back to the future and Ms James says it’s time for Bendigo to answer the questions posed by the Bendigo Spirit.

She states the case to support the Spirit is simple.

“We’ve done the hard yards to develop the product, it’s now time to tell the community.”

So if you get the chance, listen to what the Bendigo Spirit has to say. Like me, you might then realise this is a club that’s about so much more than just the game of basketball.