crellis
04-12-2005, 09:40 PM
...Andrew Gaze
They will go down in history as the most celebrated father and son partnership in Australian sport. For over 20 years, their fates have been inextricably linked – like night and day, death and taxes. The one thing you could bank on was that Andrew Gaze would captain the Melbourne Tigers and Lindsay Gaze would be his coach.
And now, according to reports out of Melbourne, the end may be nigh for this magnificent duo. The Age and Herald Sun newspapers have speculated that both Andrew and Lindsay are about to slip off quietly into the sunset. If that is indeed so, it marks the end of one of the most important eras in Australian basketball, and the loss of two individuals who are simply impossible to replace.
You’d like to think both could be persuaded to go around one more time, if only that they could be properly recognised for their contribution to the game. Something similar to that which was done for Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the NBA, for example. Of course, both of these very humble men would think such a notion preposterous. Being the professionals that they are, they would likely only come back if they felt the Tigers needed their services for a drive to the championship, not for any so-called ‘retirement tour’.
But heck, there’s no reason Andrew can’t lace ‘em up one more time. Let’s face it, despite his age and lack of footspeed these days (not that he had that much to begin with), how many 39 year olds do you know who can still average 20 points a game in a tough league like the Philips Championship? I mean, the great Leroy Loggins played until the age of 43 and was still productive – does anyone honestly believe that Andrew couldn’t go at least that long?
Lindsay is also still capable of leading a team to the playoffs – in the past 17 seasons, the Tigers have missed the postseason just once. That’s a record only Perth has bettered. Sure, he has his detractors, and the club hasn’t made a Grand Final since 1997, but ask any other coach what team they fear the most and the answer is invariably the same – Melbourne. That’s because Lindsay Gaze has established a standard of excellence over the years that is envied by many.
Be that as it may, we still have to face the distinct possibility that we’ve seen the last of Gaze and Son. If that is indeed the case, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at two of the greatest careers basketball has ever witnessed, starting with the NBL’s greatest player in the competition’s first 25 years of existence.
ANDREW GAZE
Club: Melbourne Tigers
Seasons: 22
Career Stats
Regular Season
Games: 552
Points: 17,350 - 31.5 ppg
Rebounds: 2,823 - 5.1 rpg
Assists: 3,198 - 5.8 apg
Steals: 979 - 1.8 spg
Finals
Games: 60
Points: 1,558 - 25.9 ppg
Rebounds: 273 - 4.5 rpg
Assists: 333 - 5.5 apg
Steals: 96 - 1.6 spg
Career Highlights
All Time NBL Scoring Leader
All Time NBL Assists Leader
All Time NBL leader in Games Played
NBL Most Valuable Player 7 times (1991, 1992, 1994-98)
NBL Rookie of the Year 1984
All-NBL First Team 15 times (1986-2000)
Voted NBL’s Greatest Player, 25th Anniversary Team
NBL All-Star Game MVP twice (1989, 1992)
Five Time Olympian
All Time Olympic Games Scoring Leader
Captain, Australian Olympic Team, Sydney 2000
International Player of the Year 5 times (1990, 1994-96, 1998)
NCAA Runner Up with Seton Hall, 1989
NCAA West Regional MVP 1989
NBA Championship, San Antonio Spurs 1999
It’s quite the resume, isn’t it? Not bad for a guy who indirectly faced severe criticism from some quarters when he was named to his first Olympic team, coached by his father, as a precocious 18 year old in 1984. The cries of nepotism rang long and loud, but Andrew silenced the knockers with an outstanding debut in Los Angeles – the event that announced his arrival as a genuine world-class talent.
Of course, NBL watchers had already had a dose of the ‘Gaze Factor’, as the 6’7” guard with the oversized head who couldn’t jump to save his life averaged a staggering 29.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg and 4.1 apg his rookie season. It was an astonishing performance despite the fact that at the time Melbourne was one of the league’s perennial doormats.
That was just the beginning of a scoring rampage the likes of which we’ll probably never see again. In the next 15 seasons, Gaze never averaged less than 30 points per game. And it wasn’t that he was a ballhog either, because he was a regular in the top ten in assists, and shot the ball incredibly well – he was over 50% from the floor every season up to 2000, a remarkable stat in itself.
In 1987, Andrew averaged an almost incomprehensible 44.1ppg, and broke the 50-point barrier on six occasions. Teams could gear up to stop him based on the fact the Tigers weren’t very good and didn’t have much outside number 10, but it didn’t matter what anyone tried. If you played him straight up, he used that tremendous off the ball movement to work his way free for an easy score. If you stood off him, forget about it – he’d just drain threes all day long.
And speaking of that year, one of the highlights was the visit of the superpower Soviet Union to these shores to face the Boomers in what would turn out to be an exceptional preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The Soviets, coached by the legendary Alexsander Gomelsky, brought everyone out save for the injured Arvydas Sabonis, and overpowered the Australians 5-0, in a test series that sold out the Sydney Entertainment Centre for the first time and created unprecedented interest across the nation.
What most people remember from those games however was a Sunday afternoon in Melbourne; when Gaze almost single-handedly carried Australia to an upset win at the old Glasshouse. He scored 44 points on 11 of 13 from three-point range including a monster trey as time expired to send the game into overtime, and had he not fouled out the result may have been different. He was simply magnificent that day, and was by now unquestionably the face of the sport in this country.
After a successful Olympics, where Australia achieved their best result to date (fourth place) Andrew was courted by family friend and Seton Hall University coach PJ Carlesimo to play a season for the Pirates in 1988-89, given he had some college eligibility remaining. He accepted, and led the small college in New Jersey all the way to the final game of the NCAA tournament, where they lost by a single point in overtime to Michigan. Along the way, the team upended powerhouses Indiana and Duke in true Cinderella fashion, and Andrew earned West Regional MVP honours to boot. In fact, that Duke game where he scored 20 points and was unstoppable in the second half was his coming out party in the United States. Long-time CBS Sports announcer Brent Musberger remarked, as Gaze nailed yet another three, “Well, they don’t have Larry Bird down under, but Gaze will do down there won’t he?”
Surprisingly, Andrew wasn’t drafted by the NBA following that incredible college season, and went to the Seattle veterans’ camp, where he was the last player cut by the Supersonics, who were looking for a big man at the time. He was philosophical about missing out, and returned to Australia, where his beloved Tigers were starting to make some noise, making the playoffs in 1989 for the first time in franchise history.
Unfortunately, he suffered a rare deep vein thrombosis in his upper right arm the next season, an illness that was life threatening. He was sidelined for four months, missing the 1990 playoffs in the process. Thankfully, he managed to recover and went to Italy in what was then the NBL offseason, averaging an impressive 30 points a game for Udine, and endearing himself to a whole new legion of international fans.
Back home, Andrew would lead the Tigers to their first Grand Final in 1992, then the very next season, an historic championship win over the Perth Wildcats. Who will ever forget the image of that highly emotional father and son embrace, as both finally realised the culmination of a dream – to take the Melbourne Tigers, the so-called ‘family club’, to an NBL title.
Another championship in 1997 followed, and it seemed the Andrew Gaze legacy was complete but still there was more. After a brief stint with the NBA’s Washington Bullets in 1994, he was signed by the San Antonio Spurs for the 1999-2000 season, and although he saw little game time still earned himself an NBA Championship ring, only the second Australian to do so after Luc Longley’s three with the Chicago Bulls.
Then there was the event that capped off his phenomenal career – his selection, as a five-time Olympian, to captain the Australian Olympic Team and carry the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Games. It was a fitting tribute to one of the greatest sportsmen this country has ever produced, and boy, did he ever bear that flag with tremendous pride as he led 600 Australian athletes inside the Olympic Stadium in front of 110,000 people.
The truth is you could write a book about Andrew Gaze and what he has meant to the sport in this country. To call him an icon doesn’t even do him justice. He has garnered great respect both here and abroad for his efforts on the floor and there’s no question that he should eventually be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts alongside such luminaries as Larry Bird, Earvin ‘Magic ‘Johnson, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.
The most important thing that’s always stood out about Andrew however is the way he’s conducted himself off the court. He’s always been incredibly humble and unfailingly decent, never refused a request for an autograph and is fantastic with kids. He’s just a great role model for anyone to follow, a class act all the way and a credit to our great sport.
For all basketball fans across the nation, it’s been a privilege to watch him play. Let’s just hope he decides to go around again, because we’ll never see anyone like him in this country ever again. Andrew Gaze is one of life’s true champions.
LINDSAY GAZE
Club: Melbourne Tigers
Seasons: 22
Career Stats
Games Coached: 689
Record: 363-326, 52.6%
Career Highlights
NBL Championship 1993, 1997
NBL Coach of the Year 3 times (1989, 1997, 1999)
NBL Second All-time in Games Won
Australian Olympic Coach 4 times (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984)
Australian World Championship Coach 3 times (1974, 1976, 1980)
Australian Olympic Player 3 times (1960, 1964, 1968)
Member, FIBA
Member, Australian Basketball Hall of Fame
Associate Member, Sport Australia Hall of Fame
Lindsay Gaze has been involved with basketball since 1955. That’s half a century, folks. In that time, he has been a part of no less than seven Olympic Games as a player or coach, tasted untold of success with his beloved Melbourne Church club at State and national level and won two NBL Championships. Oh, by the way, he produced a son who ended up the best Australian player of all-time. In every possible way, he is quite literally the father of the modern game in this country.
The fact that he has only won two National Basketball League titles doesn’t accurately reflect how much he has meant to this sport. He is an innovator, a philosopher and, most importantly, a great teacher. He brought the University of Auburn shuffle offence to these shores and is still running a variation of it after 20 years. And people still can’t stop it.
His leadership of the Australian national team got the Boomers their best result at that time, seventh in 1984, and helped lay the platform for two fourth place finishes over the next three Olympics. In fact, one game symbolised his greatness as a coach at international level, when the undersized Boomers beat West Germany in Los Angeles. That German team featured no less than four guys who would go on to the NBA, including perennial All-Star Detlef Schrempf.
He has mentored two truly great NBL coaches in Brian Goorjian and Bruce Palmer. Goorjian was his first captain for the Tigers in 1984 while Palmer was as fiery a player as he was a coach when he suited up for Lindsay in the early ‘80s.
Lindsay’s greatest coaching feat was to lead a struggling club out of the wilderness to become one of the league’s genuine powerhouses. People tend to forget how bad the Tigers were in the early days of their existence in the NBL. They were a team with one superstar and not much else but coach Gaze persevered. He made astute recruiting decisions, built an offence that no one could stop and got his guys to play tough D at the other end of the floor. The result was a basketball team respected by all and feared by many.
He was a foundation member of the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame, is a highly respected voice on the sport’s governing body FIBA, was a great national team coach and has won three National Basketball League Coach of the Year awards. He has coached more games than anyone else in the nation, and his 363 victories ranks second only to Sydney’s Brian Goorjian.
If his son is a sporting icon, then Lindsay Gaze is unquestionably a sporting institution. He of course would want nothing to do with such nonsense, for he is a pragmatic man who doesn’t suffer fools lightly. He is a very humble individual who simply loves the game with an intense passion and disdains the spotlight, in much the same way as his remarkable son.
There’s no question however that basketball would not be where it is today without his incredible contribution. If this truly is the end of his marvellous coaching career, everyone connected with the sport should give thanks to Lindsay Gaze for what he has done over the past 50 years. We will all be much poorer for his departure from the sidelines.
But the good news for Australian basketball is a changing of the gaurd - Andrew Bogut is a Gun....Look out!!!
They will go down in history as the most celebrated father and son partnership in Australian sport. For over 20 years, their fates have been inextricably linked – like night and day, death and taxes. The one thing you could bank on was that Andrew Gaze would captain the Melbourne Tigers and Lindsay Gaze would be his coach.
And now, according to reports out of Melbourne, the end may be nigh for this magnificent duo. The Age and Herald Sun newspapers have speculated that both Andrew and Lindsay are about to slip off quietly into the sunset. If that is indeed so, it marks the end of one of the most important eras in Australian basketball, and the loss of two individuals who are simply impossible to replace.
You’d like to think both could be persuaded to go around one more time, if only that they could be properly recognised for their contribution to the game. Something similar to that which was done for Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the NBA, for example. Of course, both of these very humble men would think such a notion preposterous. Being the professionals that they are, they would likely only come back if they felt the Tigers needed their services for a drive to the championship, not for any so-called ‘retirement tour’.
But heck, there’s no reason Andrew can’t lace ‘em up one more time. Let’s face it, despite his age and lack of footspeed these days (not that he had that much to begin with), how many 39 year olds do you know who can still average 20 points a game in a tough league like the Philips Championship? I mean, the great Leroy Loggins played until the age of 43 and was still productive – does anyone honestly believe that Andrew couldn’t go at least that long?
Lindsay is also still capable of leading a team to the playoffs – in the past 17 seasons, the Tigers have missed the postseason just once. That’s a record only Perth has bettered. Sure, he has his detractors, and the club hasn’t made a Grand Final since 1997, but ask any other coach what team they fear the most and the answer is invariably the same – Melbourne. That’s because Lindsay Gaze has established a standard of excellence over the years that is envied by many.
Be that as it may, we still have to face the distinct possibility that we’ve seen the last of Gaze and Son. If that is indeed the case, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at two of the greatest careers basketball has ever witnessed, starting with the NBL’s greatest player in the competition’s first 25 years of existence.
ANDREW GAZE
Club: Melbourne Tigers
Seasons: 22
Career Stats
Regular Season
Games: 552
Points: 17,350 - 31.5 ppg
Rebounds: 2,823 - 5.1 rpg
Assists: 3,198 - 5.8 apg
Steals: 979 - 1.8 spg
Finals
Games: 60
Points: 1,558 - 25.9 ppg
Rebounds: 273 - 4.5 rpg
Assists: 333 - 5.5 apg
Steals: 96 - 1.6 spg
Career Highlights
All Time NBL Scoring Leader
All Time NBL Assists Leader
All Time NBL leader in Games Played
NBL Most Valuable Player 7 times (1991, 1992, 1994-98)
NBL Rookie of the Year 1984
All-NBL First Team 15 times (1986-2000)
Voted NBL’s Greatest Player, 25th Anniversary Team
NBL All-Star Game MVP twice (1989, 1992)
Five Time Olympian
All Time Olympic Games Scoring Leader
Captain, Australian Olympic Team, Sydney 2000
International Player of the Year 5 times (1990, 1994-96, 1998)
NCAA Runner Up with Seton Hall, 1989
NCAA West Regional MVP 1989
NBA Championship, San Antonio Spurs 1999
It’s quite the resume, isn’t it? Not bad for a guy who indirectly faced severe criticism from some quarters when he was named to his first Olympic team, coached by his father, as a precocious 18 year old in 1984. The cries of nepotism rang long and loud, but Andrew silenced the knockers with an outstanding debut in Los Angeles – the event that announced his arrival as a genuine world-class talent.
Of course, NBL watchers had already had a dose of the ‘Gaze Factor’, as the 6’7” guard with the oversized head who couldn’t jump to save his life averaged a staggering 29.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg and 4.1 apg his rookie season. It was an astonishing performance despite the fact that at the time Melbourne was one of the league’s perennial doormats.
That was just the beginning of a scoring rampage the likes of which we’ll probably never see again. In the next 15 seasons, Gaze never averaged less than 30 points per game. And it wasn’t that he was a ballhog either, because he was a regular in the top ten in assists, and shot the ball incredibly well – he was over 50% from the floor every season up to 2000, a remarkable stat in itself.
In 1987, Andrew averaged an almost incomprehensible 44.1ppg, and broke the 50-point barrier on six occasions. Teams could gear up to stop him based on the fact the Tigers weren’t very good and didn’t have much outside number 10, but it didn’t matter what anyone tried. If you played him straight up, he used that tremendous off the ball movement to work his way free for an easy score. If you stood off him, forget about it – he’d just drain threes all day long.
And speaking of that year, one of the highlights was the visit of the superpower Soviet Union to these shores to face the Boomers in what would turn out to be an exceptional preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The Soviets, coached by the legendary Alexsander Gomelsky, brought everyone out save for the injured Arvydas Sabonis, and overpowered the Australians 5-0, in a test series that sold out the Sydney Entertainment Centre for the first time and created unprecedented interest across the nation.
What most people remember from those games however was a Sunday afternoon in Melbourne; when Gaze almost single-handedly carried Australia to an upset win at the old Glasshouse. He scored 44 points on 11 of 13 from three-point range including a monster trey as time expired to send the game into overtime, and had he not fouled out the result may have been different. He was simply magnificent that day, and was by now unquestionably the face of the sport in this country.
After a successful Olympics, where Australia achieved their best result to date (fourth place) Andrew was courted by family friend and Seton Hall University coach PJ Carlesimo to play a season for the Pirates in 1988-89, given he had some college eligibility remaining. He accepted, and led the small college in New Jersey all the way to the final game of the NCAA tournament, where they lost by a single point in overtime to Michigan. Along the way, the team upended powerhouses Indiana and Duke in true Cinderella fashion, and Andrew earned West Regional MVP honours to boot. In fact, that Duke game where he scored 20 points and was unstoppable in the second half was his coming out party in the United States. Long-time CBS Sports announcer Brent Musberger remarked, as Gaze nailed yet another three, “Well, they don’t have Larry Bird down under, but Gaze will do down there won’t he?”
Surprisingly, Andrew wasn’t drafted by the NBA following that incredible college season, and went to the Seattle veterans’ camp, where he was the last player cut by the Supersonics, who were looking for a big man at the time. He was philosophical about missing out, and returned to Australia, where his beloved Tigers were starting to make some noise, making the playoffs in 1989 for the first time in franchise history.
Unfortunately, he suffered a rare deep vein thrombosis in his upper right arm the next season, an illness that was life threatening. He was sidelined for four months, missing the 1990 playoffs in the process. Thankfully, he managed to recover and went to Italy in what was then the NBL offseason, averaging an impressive 30 points a game for Udine, and endearing himself to a whole new legion of international fans.
Back home, Andrew would lead the Tigers to their first Grand Final in 1992, then the very next season, an historic championship win over the Perth Wildcats. Who will ever forget the image of that highly emotional father and son embrace, as both finally realised the culmination of a dream – to take the Melbourne Tigers, the so-called ‘family club’, to an NBL title.
Another championship in 1997 followed, and it seemed the Andrew Gaze legacy was complete but still there was more. After a brief stint with the NBA’s Washington Bullets in 1994, he was signed by the San Antonio Spurs for the 1999-2000 season, and although he saw little game time still earned himself an NBA Championship ring, only the second Australian to do so after Luc Longley’s three with the Chicago Bulls.
Then there was the event that capped off his phenomenal career – his selection, as a five-time Olympian, to captain the Australian Olympic Team and carry the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Games. It was a fitting tribute to one of the greatest sportsmen this country has ever produced, and boy, did he ever bear that flag with tremendous pride as he led 600 Australian athletes inside the Olympic Stadium in front of 110,000 people.
The truth is you could write a book about Andrew Gaze and what he has meant to the sport in this country. To call him an icon doesn’t even do him justice. He has garnered great respect both here and abroad for his efforts on the floor and there’s no question that he should eventually be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts alongside such luminaries as Larry Bird, Earvin ‘Magic ‘Johnson, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.
The most important thing that’s always stood out about Andrew however is the way he’s conducted himself off the court. He’s always been incredibly humble and unfailingly decent, never refused a request for an autograph and is fantastic with kids. He’s just a great role model for anyone to follow, a class act all the way and a credit to our great sport.
For all basketball fans across the nation, it’s been a privilege to watch him play. Let’s just hope he decides to go around again, because we’ll never see anyone like him in this country ever again. Andrew Gaze is one of life’s true champions.
LINDSAY GAZE
Club: Melbourne Tigers
Seasons: 22
Career Stats
Games Coached: 689
Record: 363-326, 52.6%
Career Highlights
NBL Championship 1993, 1997
NBL Coach of the Year 3 times (1989, 1997, 1999)
NBL Second All-time in Games Won
Australian Olympic Coach 4 times (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984)
Australian World Championship Coach 3 times (1974, 1976, 1980)
Australian Olympic Player 3 times (1960, 1964, 1968)
Member, FIBA
Member, Australian Basketball Hall of Fame
Associate Member, Sport Australia Hall of Fame
Lindsay Gaze has been involved with basketball since 1955. That’s half a century, folks. In that time, he has been a part of no less than seven Olympic Games as a player or coach, tasted untold of success with his beloved Melbourne Church club at State and national level and won two NBL Championships. Oh, by the way, he produced a son who ended up the best Australian player of all-time. In every possible way, he is quite literally the father of the modern game in this country.
The fact that he has only won two National Basketball League titles doesn’t accurately reflect how much he has meant to this sport. He is an innovator, a philosopher and, most importantly, a great teacher. He brought the University of Auburn shuffle offence to these shores and is still running a variation of it after 20 years. And people still can’t stop it.
His leadership of the Australian national team got the Boomers their best result at that time, seventh in 1984, and helped lay the platform for two fourth place finishes over the next three Olympics. In fact, one game symbolised his greatness as a coach at international level, when the undersized Boomers beat West Germany in Los Angeles. That German team featured no less than four guys who would go on to the NBA, including perennial All-Star Detlef Schrempf.
He has mentored two truly great NBL coaches in Brian Goorjian and Bruce Palmer. Goorjian was his first captain for the Tigers in 1984 while Palmer was as fiery a player as he was a coach when he suited up for Lindsay in the early ‘80s.
Lindsay’s greatest coaching feat was to lead a struggling club out of the wilderness to become one of the league’s genuine powerhouses. People tend to forget how bad the Tigers were in the early days of their existence in the NBL. They were a team with one superstar and not much else but coach Gaze persevered. He made astute recruiting decisions, built an offence that no one could stop and got his guys to play tough D at the other end of the floor. The result was a basketball team respected by all and feared by many.
He was a foundation member of the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame, is a highly respected voice on the sport’s governing body FIBA, was a great national team coach and has won three National Basketball League Coach of the Year awards. He has coached more games than anyone else in the nation, and his 363 victories ranks second only to Sydney’s Brian Goorjian.
If his son is a sporting icon, then Lindsay Gaze is unquestionably a sporting institution. He of course would want nothing to do with such nonsense, for he is a pragmatic man who doesn’t suffer fools lightly. He is a very humble individual who simply loves the game with an intense passion and disdains the spotlight, in much the same way as his remarkable son.
There’s no question however that basketball would not be where it is today without his incredible contribution. If this truly is the end of his marvellous coaching career, everyone connected with the sport should give thanks to Lindsay Gaze for what he has done over the past 50 years. We will all be much poorer for his departure from the sidelines.
But the good news for Australian basketball is a changing of the gaurd - Andrew Bogut is a Gun....Look out!!!