Overview
Bishops basketball falls under WP Schools Basketball, Basketball South Africa and FIBA. Basketball is played as a full summer sport in the first and last terms of the year.
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We run 3 sides in total - U18, U16 and U14 - in rotating squads. Most boys have not experienced the game before joining the College and so we have to start the training from scratch. Not many teachers have played basketball and so coaches are always hard to find and we rely heavily on outside professional help (mostly ODs).
As the boys improve their skills, they start to enjoy the game more and more, and we usually have many more senior boys joining the sport during their later years at the College.
We play against all the local basketball schools and usually end up at the top end of the league table. Matches are on a Wednesday afternoon. Winter men's league can now be played by those who want to join an outside club using other facilities! Most players only start playing seriously at university level and will peak in basketball terms at age 30. This is why the OD match is always won by the experienced, older players.
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Vision
Bishops is one of the leading schools in South Africa as far as sport is concerned and our reputation for sporting excellence is world-wide. In keeping with the ethos of our school, we believe that sport plays a vital role in the development of young men. In particular, we believe that participation in a team sport enhances the educational experience. To this end, it is a school rule that all boys must play an official school sport during both summer and winter terms.
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Glen Gibbon has been running basketball for the past 20-odd years, before which Simon Poole and the legendary Ken Wilson (after which the inter-house trophy is named) were the coaches.
We have had numerous WP and South Africa players representing the sport, the latest being Andre du Plessis at SA U21 level. We have regularly attended the St Johns College festival in Johannesburg, as well as the ISSASA tournament at Kearsney. The sport has been played at Bishops for the past 48 years.
We have one wonderful indoor court in the Mallett Centre, which has an electronic scoreboard and perspex backboards (although the flooring should be wood-sprung). This is one of the biggest courts in South Africa. We also have one outdoor court that is utilised mainly by the junior teams.
Internationally, basketball is the second most popular sport world-wide (after soccer) and is played throughout all the continents. In the latest Forbes top-earning sportsmen lists, it has the highest number of earners of all sports - 15 of the top 50 are basketball players, followed by golf, tennis and motor sport.
LEAP school comes and joins us for games, and we want to expand on this.