LEAD STORY - BASKETBALL: Langrell finds feet to lead Hawks

H E IS ultimately a son of the preacher man.
A boy from a middle-class Pakeha family, David Langrell fancied himself as a tennis player.
Few would have argued with a youngster whose profile was almost a carbon copy of "The Scud", Mark Philippoussis, the former Australian Wimbledon and US Open champion.
But as his father, Anglican minister Gordon Langrell, spread the word in a predominantly working-class suburb of Hornby in Christchurch, the then boy in his early teens found himself building an affinity with rugby and basketball.
That is not to say other factors didn't help convince Langrell the path to glory in the racquet game was fraught with potholes.
"Tennis kids tended to come from richer areas. Even as a kid - I don't think I cognitively thought of it then - the kids I hung out with at rugby clubs I liked a lot more than the tennis kids who were a little bit up themselves," the 1.98m basketball forward tells SportToday before tonight's 7pm tip-off against the Southland Sharks in Napier.
"I was supposedly from the wrong side of the tracks," says the 32-year-old from Christchurch who will lead the 0800 Easy LPG Hawks in their first home game of the National Basketball League at the Pettigrew-Green Arena this season.
Blessed with four more centimetres than Victorian professional Philippoussis in height, a lanky Langrell was out-serving and smashing his opponents off the court in the national age-group circuit.
"Suddenly these kids I was beating two years go were kicking my butt, actually," he says, raking his curly mop of hair held lightly together with a white headband.
"Funnily enough, I beat Mark Nielsen [former New Zealand No 1] when I was 12 and he was 10 at the under-12 nationals. I beat him six love, six love.
"That was my great claim to fame. Two years later, at the under-14 nationals, when he was 12 and I was 14, he beat me six love, six love 6-0, 6-0," he says, adding his three times a week, hour-long sessions from the age of 8 weren't compatible with his Auckland peers whose coaches command lucrative salaries from before-and-after school sessions.
A knee injury also took its toll.
A promising age-group Canterbury rugby player, Langrell gravitated towards basketball as a third former at Christchurch Boys' High School although his move to a co-educational Riccarton High School saw him lose the benefits of a solid programme at the former school.
"Basketball purist" and Christchurch Boys' High coach Ian Simpson fuelled the desire of the man they call "D" to carry on.
It did help considerably that his father, the Rev Langrell, 74, was a "pretty good athlete", having represented Canterbury and NZ Universities as a basketball forward at a time when the country didn't have a rep team.
"He always used to tell me how he averaged about 50 points a game.
"He used to shoot hook shots all the time," he says with a grin.
"My father put up a backboard and a hoop in the backyard and I could practise by myself," says Langrell, revealing the athleticism during the Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson era did its share.
"You could go and kick goals in rugby but in tennis you always needed someone good because you couldn't just go down with a friend who was useless to have a hit."
At 16, Langrell made the New Zealand under-18s. Two years in the New Zealand junior men's team followed. Highflyers such as Pero Cameron and Phill Jones, had set the tone a year before him as he rubbed shoulders with pedigree players such as Mark Dickel, Prem Krishna, Dylan Boucher. Kirk Penney and Paul Henare followed a year later.
The now defunct Canterbury Rams, who were close to winning the league every year under coach Keith Mair, scouted Langrell a year after he left school but two seasons frustrations on the bench followed. He went on to play for the franchise in 12 of his 16-year career but an NBL title remained elusive.
Mair helped secure a year-long stint in division two college basketball in Syracuse, New York.
He feels he was pushed into captaincy a little too early.
"I think it's difficult to be a leader if you're not one of the best players and I wasn't always one of the best players," he says, adding his ascendancy also had to do with a lack of leadership at times.
"One of the reasons I came up here was because I thought I won't have to have a leadership role because Paul Henare is the obvious leader.
"He has a lot of mana in the community and basketball community. He's such a great guy and a professional both on and off the court so I was a bit gutted when I heard he's ankle wasn't right," he explains, adding a joke as the next oldest guy should assume the mantle of captaincy backfired on him.
With so many seasoned heads among the Hawks, Langrell feels comfortable leading.
"Guys lead in different ways. Yes, there's a little bit of responsibility that goes with it but I don't feel it too much."
He enjoys a fulltime coach in Shawn Dennis and believes the franchise here is more professional than in Christchurch.
Leaving varsity at 24, he plied his trade in the Irish league for four years as a "Bosman" player, thanks to mother Annette Langrell's British passport.
If he could turn back time, he'd love to give the Australian National Basketball League (ANBL) a crack but he accepts his stature and limited athleticism are negatives.
"The standard goes up and the game changes. I'm naturally a small forward but at NBL level about the right size," says the player who was in the Tall Blacks squad in 1999 and 2000 under Mair and Tab Baldwin, making the final 16 in 2000.
"It was really disappointing but it wasn't something I felt I got ripped off on. I agreed with the decision. If I was the coach I probably wouldn't pick me either."