Basketball: Shooting for the top with Tab

By GEOFF CUMMING

Halftime in Indiana in the semifinal of the world basketball championships and in living rooms around the country New Zealanders are on the edges of their seats.

The Tall Blacks are leading 48-39 against titleholders Yugoslavia, who they have beaten in a warm-up match.

In the cavernous Conseco Fieldhouse stadium, a small but frenzied band of Kiwi supporters are struggling to make their voices heard against the mass of Yugoslav fans.

Coach Tab Baldwin draws breath. He knows the job isn't done. Although the local fans have stayed away, he bathes in the atmosphere of his biggest test to date.

It is a long way from his early days with the Auckland national league team, camping on a mattress in a spare office in the ASB Stadium.

Just getting to basketball-crazy Indiana was something of a pilgrimage for the former high school player who has eked out a living in the Cinderella world of New Zealand basketball since 1988.

Indiana is the pinnacle for any basketball coach, the home of the purists.

"Basketball means more to Indiana than rugby does to New Zealand," he told the Listener before leaving for the tournament.

In the second half, the Tall Blacks wilt against the Yugoslav onslaught and the dream is over. Legions of newfound fans in New Zealand are far from disappointed, but Baldwin and the team are devastated.

"It was a dream that was very real to us, very achievable and it was gone."

But Indiana has been the making of Thomas Anthony Baldwin, just as it made his father's basketball coaching career. In 1933 his father, John Baldwin, captained Notre Dame University to win the state's first national college title. The victory secured John a future in coaching and he became a legend in Florida basketball, taking Bishop Kenny High School for 25 years and coaching all five of his sons along the way.

At home in Jacksonville, the conversation revolved around basketball and Tab, the youngest Baldwin, immersed himself in his father's library of coaching books. But when he contemplated a similar sporting career path, his father was vehemently opposed.

"Dad said I needed to take care of my future and that business was the way to go. We butted heads for a few months."

Acceding to his father's wishes, he enrolled at Notre Dame and qualified as an accountant. "I spent 20 horrible months trying to be a businessman but I knew I wasn't one."

When he did turn to coaching, he says his father was supportive. He spent five years as an assistant coach in the US, first at Auburn University at Montgomery, in Alabama, and later at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

His father died last year, shortly after Tab became Tall Blacks coach and before the epic win over Australia which took them to Indiana. But if he felt any pressure to emulate his father, it eased long ago when Baldwin won the first of five national titles with Auckland.

Baldwin came to New Zealand in 1988, as head coach of the Otago Nuggets, after a phone call from ex-Montgomery player Jesse Phillips, who was playing in Dunedin.

But after taking the Nuggets to national league status he was dumped when they finished second-last in their first year. He ended up coaching at the Invercargill YMCA.

"I felt like I wasn't worth anything," he later said.

Now he is the target of talent scouts for wealthy US college teams and European clubs. World championship wins over Russia, Venezuela, China and Puerto Rico lifted the nation's spirits and slam-dunked New Zealand on to the international stage. Top priority for New Zealand basketball as it seeks to build on its newfound status is keeping Tab.

Baldwin today is unrecognisable from the young American who first set foot in Dunedin, says Carl Dickel, the former national women's coach and father of Tall Blacks' star Mark.

He expected more commitment from Kiwi players used to training part-time.

"He was desperate to make an impact, to have some success. He did some things he probably wouldn't do again."

But Dickel credits Baldwin with a rare ability to learn from his mistakes and to continue to develop as a coach and as a person.

"He is always trying to be a better coach, to perfect his own skills and learn new ones."

Prominent ears on shaven head, moderate in stature but eyes bulging with passion, Baldwin gets as fired up as any sideline general in the heat of a basketball match. But he has learned to retain composure, second-guess his opponents and, invariably, call the right plays.

Of course, our Indiana adventure reflected the world-class talent in the Tall Blacks squad, nurtured over several years.

Pero Cameron, Phill Jones, Mark "Sparkie" Dickel, Kirk Penney and Rob Hickey consistently shone. Rotation players Ed Book, Dillon Boucher and Paul Henare stepped up, ensuring no loss of intensity while they were on court.

But as the tournament wore on, Baldwin and his coaching team provided the X factor that allowed the vertically challenged Tall Blacks to continue to play above themselves.

Not many expected New Zealand to go beyond the first round. We have always struggled to find the 2m-plus players who dominate at international level and in the world's best-known league, the American NBA. In a sport played by millions in more than 200 countries, New Zealand's traditional lot had been to fight bravely before losing with honour.

Under Baldwin, the objective is to win.

When injuries ruled out Tony Rampton before the tournament, and Sean Marks after the loss to Argentina in pool play, we were conceding even more height to opposing behemoths under the basket.

For the coaching bench of Baldwin, assistant coach Nenad Vucinic and video analyst Murray McMahon, the challenge was to outwit teams that were bigger, had better build-ups and which were usually sprinkled with NBA stars. They did so for long periods in most games, confusing the opposition by running variations on defensive and offensive systems, switching tactics and players.

German coach Henrik Duttman called us the best coached team in the competition.

Baldwin deflects most of the accolades to the players and Vucinic. He knows he can never be the perfect coach. There were periods in most games in Indiana when the opposition would get on a scoring roll and the Tall Blacks seemed helpless.

Following the semifinal exit against eventual winners Yugoslavia - after New Zealand led at halftime - Baldwin's devastation was genuine.

"Tab and Pero both knew they could have won if they had stuck to the system but they lost their way in that third quarter," says Mike Tait, an age group coach in Auckland.

"That's why they were so disappointed."

But Tait says Baldwin worked "a minor miracle".

"People say he's a systems coach but he's a seat of the pants coach as well. Against Russia and China, he threw the game plan away."

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that basketball not only runs in Baldwin's blood, he eats, drinks and sleeps it. He met his wife, Raewyn, through her work on the Auckland Stars scoring bench.

His job with Basketball New Zealand as national coaching development officer - the Tall Blacks job is unpaid - means spending week days in Wellington, away from their Kumeu home.

His daughter from a previous relationship attends primary school in Hamilton and he keeps in contact. But Baldwin is reluctant to talk about his personal life, saying it is not relevant to his coaching career.

However, friends say he is the same straight-shooter away from the game that New Zealanders see through their TV sets courtside. He has strong Christian values and doesn't drink or smoke.

He has adapted his love of statistics to rugby, assisting the North Harbour NPC team last year with video analysis. He is a partner in fantasyrugby.com, a hugely popular internet game built around a statistical package he devised.

He plays golf and socialises with American expat basketballers Tony Webster and Kenny Stone. But coaching basketball is never far from his thoughts.

Webster says he goes fishing before big matches to "take himself away and prepare, then he goes into battle". Pre-game, he takes a shower to compose his team talk.

Webster played under Baldwin for the Auckland Stars and was his assistant coach during the team's 1995-97 "threepeat".

"He transformed me from a me-first hot shot into a multi-dimensional team player. He made me realise that a team can achieve much more than individuals. He has this instinctive awareness about how to build a winning team."

He is a great spotter, and nurturer, of talent, including Pero Cameron and Dillon Boucher. At least one prominent national league player owes more than his career to Baldwin.

The story goes that the teenager was arrested and charged with being the getaway driver after a dairy robbery. The coach took the Auckland squad to court and convinced the judge to release the youth into the team's custody.

"The team really took this kid under their wing and made sure he never went off the rails," says Ian Shaw, a former co-owner of the Auckland franchise. "He is now a major contributor for another team."

It was Baldwin's knowledge of the game, and desire to expand his abilities, that endeared him to Shaw and Ari Hallenberg when they took over the ailing Auckland Stars franchise in 1992. The Stars were on the verge of financial collapse after some lean years and Baldwin was helping coach Curtis Wooten to rebuild.

"I had a part-time position at the ASB Stadium's small fitness centre and there wasn't a place for me to live so I stayed on a mattress in the office over the summer," says Baldwin.

Shaw and Hallenberg, with backgrounds in sports marketing, secured the team's financial footing. But they needed to be persuaded by coach Wooten to keep a less than enthusiastic Baldwin on.

"I think he saw us as a couple of smart arses who would be gone within a year," says Shaw. "We told him, 'we're the best chance you've got'." Baldwin looked sceptical.

He succeeded Wooten as head coach in 1994 and, a year later, the Auckland Stars won their first national title in 11 years. They went on to the unprecedented "threepeat" and Baldwin was twice coach of the year.

But when Baldwin sought the Tall Blacks job in 1997, he was rebuffed by Basketball New Zealand. He concluded that his American accent would always bar him from the national coaching role and went back to coaching Auckland, winning further titles in 1999 and 2000.

After the Sydney Olympics, where New Zealand achieved mixed results, there were changes at the top of Basketball NZ and Baldwin was encouraged to try again.

President Barbara Wheadon says he stood out from the other candidates in one way: "He had fire in his belly."

She has since recognised - and it showed in Indiana - that Baldwin's command of the English language makes him a great motivator.

"I continue to be blown away by his choice of words. What he says can motivate an entire nation. A significant part of what he does is the language. It's become the jewel in his crown."

Much has been made of the need for basketball to build on the success at Indiana, with comparisons made to soccer's failure to capitalise on its 1982 World Cup peak.

But Basketball NZ chief executive David Crocker says the sport is well-positioned, with a coaching development programme, television coverage of some national league games, top players getting NBA and European club-level competition, the next Olympics to aim for and the promise of improved funding from Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc).

But as Baldwin takes time out in the US to see friends and relatives and consider the future, fingers are crossed that he will not be lured away. Baldwin hopes a deal can be worked out to keep him here.

"This team has made a cosmic leap forward but the world of basketball isn't going to stand still. We need to cultivate the young talent that we have if we are to continue to be competitive.

"Everyone must realise it's going to require a heavy workload."