Australian basketball legend Cal Bruton left players on both teams star-struck when he played for the Queanbeyan masters side in a small basketball carnival earlier this month.
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Queanbeyan captain Wayne Bradley was at a pub with the participating teams when he decided to ask Bruton to play in the final.
“We knew we had to play Batemans Bay in the final the next day, and I was talking to the Batemans Bay guys, and I said ‘I should have asked Cal Bruton to come along’,” Bradley said.
After gauging their enthusiasm, Bradley decided to call the NBL Hall of Fame member to see if he was interested in a one-off appearance.
“Cal was terrific. He couldn’t say yes quick enough.”
Bruton helped Queanbeyan defeat Batemans Bay 50-46 as the team finalise their preparation for the Pan Pacific Masters Games in November. Bradley decided to put the team together 14 months ago after he heard that some of his mates were entering a rugby league team into the games.
“I asked 10 guys and they all said yes,” he said.
The group of players Bradley called upon have all played first division basketball while a couple have played at state level. However, until last year, most of the team hadn’t played the sport for almost a decade.
“We’ve been slowly getting better,” Bradley said. “The hardest part of all this was that all of us guys haven’t played between seven and 10 years.”
“A lot of the guys didn’t realise how much fitter they had to get.”
“You can train as much as you like… but until you actually get on the court and start bumping bodies, you just don’t realise how much your body needs to be ready to play in something like this.”
There are fewer than 40 days until the Pan Pacific Masters Games begin on the Gold Coast. The team is excited to be some of the first playing in the new basketball stadium built for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Bradley said at first he didn’t realise they would be given that opportunity, but they were thrilled when they found out that would be the case.
Having not been to the Masters Games before, Bradley believes it would be a fantastic achievement to win a medal, but the team is looking forward to the experience regardless of results.
“The experience and camaraderie alone of our mates will be enough, but if we were lucky enough to get into a medal game, a medal would be outstanding.”
