Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.
Taieri College physical education teacher Mike Tab used to drive out to the Taieri most mornings, where he would pick up a minivan load of promising basketballers and deliver them to the Edgar Centre so they could attend the basketball academy run by former Otago Nugget player-coach Mark Dickel.
When the numbers swelled, he got the idea of establishing an academy and running it at Taieri College.
''We had about three or four kids a couple of years ago who were rep players and coming into the Edgar Centre,'' he said.
''That expanded to about 10 kids coming in and me driving out there and bringing in a minivan full of kids.
''This year, we've expanded it further and said why don't we just run it out of here [Taieri College]. So we started doing two mornings a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.''
Former Taieri College sports prefect Bart Lind runs the sessions, while former junior Tall Black and Nuggets forward Sam King has also run a few sessions when Lind was unavailable.
The academy has been running for about three months and between 15 and 25 athletes attend the sessions.
Tab believes the academy has had a positive effect on the skill level of the players and that has spilled over into a stronger basketball programme for Taieri College.
''We've got some good numbers and some players with some good skills at years 9, 10 and 11. They are getting up to the senior school level where our elite teams will start to do well.
''We've lost quite a few players over the last year or two, so we have a bit of a gap. So the plan was to try to build numbers and just bring them through.''
