A little speck . . .
About a year ago, I wrote about how sad it would be if the Otago Nuggets pulled out of the National Basketball League.
They were hopeless losers, sure, but they were OUR hopeless losers.
The Nuggets duly pulled the plug, citing financial reasons for pulling out of the NBL after 18 years, and many of us wondered if they could possibly scrape together the cash to make it back.
Now the league has accepted bids from Otago and Southland, and both will join an expanded competition if they can find the money.
Brilliant.
This is great news for Otago basketball and we should applaud Basketball Otago for recognising the Nuggets franchise must exist, even as a bottom-feeder, to give the sport some profile.
Using the Otago Daily Times sports pages as a barometer - go on, you know you do - basketball has effectively been dead in this province since December.
The odd story about a junior player and a few Tall Blacks and Breakers articles have been meagre offerings for hoops fans.
With the Highlanders and Otago rugby struggling, the Rebels gone and Otago United in a rut, Otago sport needs a pick-me-up.
You can expect the Nuggets to struggle for at least the next two years.
But it's still going to be nice to have them back.
. . . of hoops gold
So the Nuggets now need to find the money and the players to be competitive in the NBL.
Cashing up will not be easy.
It's one thing to find $200,000 just to take part in the league; finding that amount again to pay for some decent players will be a heck of a mission.
I hope the Nuggets set their sights realistically - and locally - when compiling a roster and a coaching staff for next year.
There seems little sense in splashing out for an American coach, for example, when people like Alf Arlidge and Todd Marshall and Brent Matehaere are around.
A chunk of wages must obviously go to two good imports, one of whom must have size and one of whom must be able to score.
The Nuggets should also tap up Matt Gillan, Ian Cathcart and even Markham Brown to add some experience, then urge the likes of Morgan Nathan and James Ross and Tom Rowe to be part of a fresh start.
It won't be easy, especially when Southland is coming into the league and will be competing for players.
But there is no reason the Nuggets can't re-establish themselves at the national level.
Snell's strange stance
Shocked, disappointed, angry. That's how The Last Word felt after watching New Zealand running great Sir Peter Snell offer his support to drugs cheat Liza Hunter-Galvan this week.
On the 60 Minutes show on Monday night, Snell offered his sympathy to Hunter-Galvan, who is serving a ban for taking banned substance erythropoietin (EPO).
"It's so unfair" was Snell's comment on the backlash Hunter-Galvan was receiving from the New Zealand athletics.
Actually, Sir Peter, the woman is getting exactly what a litigious, cheating athlete deserves: the cold shoulder.
Hunter-Galvan gets my sympathy for the awful accident that injured one of her children, but for knowingly taking a performance-enhancing drug, she gets my condemnation.
I'm staggered Snell, widely considered to be our greatest sportsman, has taken this stance.
Hunter-Galvan said she knew she was doing the wrong thing and stopped injecting EPO after suffering from side effects.
But what if she hadn't? What if the drug was absorbed into her system just fine?
She also appeared to seek sympathy for receiving a harsh letter from Athletics New Zealand saying she had failed at the Olympics.
That's pathetic. The national body expects its athletes to perform to their best. Elite sport isn't for those who can't handle blunt appraisals.
Hunter-Galvan will now forever be remembered as a cheat.
And it's very sad that Snell's extraordinary legacy has also been tarnished.
Long tall Jake
Speaking of legacies, how will you remember Jacob Oram in the future?1.
A multitalented cricketer, one of New Zealand's best?2.
A product of his time, someone who realised the smart thing to do was to focus on limited-overs cricket?3.
An over-rated, under-achieving, injury-prone, mentally-soft gentle giant?
Roulston gets around
Former Highlanders and Hurricanes assistant coach Murray Roulston is swimming in uncharted rugby waters.
Roulston is spending three months in Trinidad and Tobago to help with the development of the game in the Caribbean.
He has previously had stints in Japan and Romania.
The business of sport
The University of California's Berkeley campus was a hotbed of protests during the 1960s, and now a new clash has divided the students.
The college has poured more than US$430 million into fixing up a sports stadium and building a new sports office and training complex.
At the same time, Berkeley has been told to lay off 300 non-faculty employees because of a budget crisis.
When Jimmy met Terry
That's former England footballer Terry Butcher on the left and Dunedin identity Jimmy Loan on the right.
Loan caught up with Butcher at the Inverness Caledonian Thistle club in Scotland recently.
Butcher, who played 77 times for England and won the Uefa Cup with Ipswich, manages the First Division club and is also Scotland's assistant manager.
Loan played for both clubs (Inverness Caledonian and Thistle - they merged in 1994) before coming to New Zealand in 1962 and playing for and coaching Roslyn, Northern, High School Old Boys and Otago.
