Broome basketballers Indonesia bound

Two youth basketball teams from Broome will be travelling to Surabaya in East Java, Indonesia in early August in what is thought to be the first overseas trip by junior or senior sporting teams from Broome, and possibly even the Kimberley region.

17 July 2009

The touring group of 24 players consists of one boys' team and one girls' team and is made up of students aged mostly from 13 to 15 years who are attending either Broome Senior High School or St Mary's College. 

Accompanying them will be seven adults in the positions of head of delegation and boys and girls head coaches, assistant coaches and team managers.

The tour is an initiative of the Broome Basketball Association, which has established a Centre of Excellence Program, and is the culmination of the basketball training undertaken within this year's program.

The program provides a skills development pathway for committed junior age basketball players from Broome to assist them to reach their potential of playing, hopefully, at a higher level.

Broome Basketball's touring group is being supported with organisational assistance from the WA Department of State Development's Global Network in Indonesia, the WA Department of Sport and Recreation's International section, the Indonesian Deteksi Basketball League and the Australian Embassy in Indonesia.

"This tour to Indonesia, which will be both a wonderful basketball and cultural experience, is not an easy tour to arrange", said Gaye Yu, president of the Broome Basketball Association.

"Our players do not play in weekly domestic and representative basketball competitions throughout the year as they do in the south of WA nor is it financially easy for us, especially in the present economic climate but we will try our best to make this tour work for all involved."

In Indonesia, the Deteksi Basketball League (DBL) will be hosting the Broome Basketball touring teams, in conjunction with the West Australian government's Department of State Development.

The Indonesian DBL, under the leadership of founder and DBL Commissioner Azrul Ananda, is the biggest student basketball competition in Indonesia. In 2009, this fast growing league will oversee games played in 16 cities and 13 provinces, with about 16,000 players involved (basically similar to Broome's total population) and with more than 225,000 spectators watching games.

The DBL was established in 2004 in Surabaya, East Java, and is a member of Jawa Pos Group, Indonesia's largest newspaper group.

The DBL is the first league to Indonesia to enforce the Student-Athlete concept, in which grades in school are as important as – if not more important than – on-court playing achievements.

In Surabaya, East Java, the Broome touring group will be playing exhibition games in the DBL Arena, a 5000 seat capacity stadium that will be full of excited spectators watching the semi-finals of the DBL competition, which will also be played during the week that the Broome teams will be there.

Last year, a representative group (a boy's and a girl's team) of the Deteski Basketball League came to Perth to play games against some sports high school teams that had elite basketball programs and the WA Metro under 16 boys' and girls' teams.

Just before that tour to Perth, DBL Commissioner Azrul Ananda said, "Our young players have been selected on the basis of their character and educational performance, not just basketball skills.

"We hope that through their interaction in sport with young Australians they will develop their skills and develop friendships that will lead to regular international games like this for DBL".

Rick Smith, CEO of Basketball Western Australia, at the time commented on DBL's Perth tour: "This is a great opportunity for our two cultures to come together through the sport of basketball to learn and grow from one another. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship between DBL and Basketball WA."

Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia, is the capital of East Java which is a sister state of Western Australia.

One of the "connections" that Broome has with Java concerns the telegraph cable line that was laid between the two places in 1889, which was a very important communication link for Australia through Indonesia and then on to Europe.