Townsville Crocodiles - Doing it for the kids

With the NBL in a "transitional" phase this season, many have commented that part of the problem over the last few years is that the league has lost touch with its grass roots. I read an article (I think by Tim Morrissey) about the death of the Sydney Kings and it mentioned the team no longer did school visits and over recent seasons they had little to do with the local community.

So, when I dropped in on the Townsville Crocodiles training session yesterday it was refreshing to see that this was not infact a league-wide trend. After the team had a full practice session, the whole organisation (all the players and the front office including the CEO) spent another two hours running a "Rookie Club" camp with about 30 local youngsters. The team played games with the kids, signed autographs and did pretty much anything that was needed to keep the kids interested and entertained.

In other notes from Crocs training session:

• Recent 200 gamer Kelvin Robertson may be short but he is a UNIT! It looks like he spent much of the off-season in the gym and has the AFL arms/guns to show for it.
• Michael Cedar may not see much court-time in games but continues to show flashes of brilliance
• Rosell Ellis plays WELL above his height
• New Croc, Brad Williamson seems to be paying hommage to John Rillie with his new buzz-cut hair style (quite different from what we were used to from Brad in Brisbane)

Thank you to the Townsville Crocodiles coaching staff (Trevor and Lyndon) and the organisation for allowing me to sit in during their practice.