[04 NOV 09] CRUSADER NEWS

 Will Bastin Interview

By Adam Manning

Coventry Crusaders were provided with an added bonus this summer when they secured the services of 6’3 centre Will Bastin.

Bastin is part of the Coventry and Warwickshire 2012 Partnership for the Olympics, and works as an assistant alongside manager Tom Clift trying to maximise Coventry and Warwickshire’s interaction and contribution to the London Olympics.

The Crusaders will therefore be able to benefit from some extra publicity as a result of Bastin’s involvement with the partnership, which will begin with a week long basketball, volley ball and hand ball session for school children at the Alan Higgs Centre from 9^th until the 13^th November, which will also involve the Crusaders “Shoot-A-Thon” on the last day.

Not only this, the former vice president of sport at Birmingham University believes the game of basketball can evolve in Britain during the lead up to 2012, provided that dedicated emphasis is placed at grass roots level.

“It needs the opportunity to be able to play recreationally” he said. “The hardest thing basketball faces is the delivery at grass roots level and getting people involved, because in this country it’s dominated by rugby, football and cricket. It’s about getting it more embedded in schools, because from my experience I didn’t pick it up until later on, but I had to be motivated to carry on playing. There’s an initiative called “outdoor basketball initiative”, where Adidas got those steel basketball hoops set up with 9,000 put up across the country, and they popped up everywhere. It’s things like that that are brilliant because it’s free and they can go and play whenever they want”.

“It’s people like Luol Deng as well, he’s probably the most well known British player at the moment. It’s also having ambassadors like that can really help”.

Bastin also alluded to the fact that he feels the standard of basketball is rising all the time in countries where basketball isn’t given as much media coverage as there is in the USA.

“Looking at it in Beijing, everyone wanted to see what the USA could bring and the line up that they had, but they had some shaky moments and I think that speaks a lot for the European game. Not many people know of the Spanish players or the Lithuanians, so it speaks volumes about what’s going on in the European scene which doesn’t ever get as much press as to what’s going on over in America. In that sense the Olympics is really the showcase for basketball, it’s the biggest sporting event in the world and it really gives people the platform to display what their sport is about at the highest level”.

As for his own participation towards 2012, Bastin is working on maximising Coventry and Warwickshire’s Olympic potential, which is being orchestrated through six projects which make our region’s partnership so unique. Add to the fact that eleven businesses out of over 2,000 regional applicants on the website competefor.com have already secured Olympic contracts with still three years to go, along with 31 schools signed up to LOCOG’s (Olympic organisers) Get Set education programme, the partnership has so far proved infectious.

So how does the partnership go about its business?

“We’re basically like the facilitator bringing all of these opportunities and presenting them to organisations and getting everyone to work together in order to participate. We work with the County Sports Partnership, Warwick University, Coventry University, and organisation called CV One and then we have the two councils.  What we do is link in with what they’re doing already and kind of add value to them by adding that 2012 element” said Bastin, who also revealed the companies they are working with are funding the partnership in various amounts.

The most publicity the partnership will gain during its existence is sure to be what activities it will be carrying out that makes itself stand out from other regions in the country. The West Midlands is a thriving area for Olympic activity outside of London with 31 training facilities available for selection in the pre games training camp guide, and the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership is striving through its projects to provide an atmosphere to match a potential influx of activity with less than 1,000 days to go.

“What we’re doing which is also very different to everyone else is our six projects. The first one is “Olympic Legends”, so we’ve uncovered 106 athletes that have a connection to Coventry and Warwickshire that have competed at the Olympic and Paralympic games dating back to 1900. It really brings home the heritage of what Coventry and Warwickshire’s got and we’re using those legends that are still alive to inspire local communities and sports clubs”.

“Linked to that is our second project called Team Coventry and Warwickshire, which is basically encouraging people to be the best they can be. Partly is looking at talented athletes in the area who have got the potential to go to 2012, providing them with performance days to help them with their training, but we also do talent identification days as well to help people that are in between that county and regional stage”.

“The third project is about carnival festivals and giving festivals Olympic themes across Coventry and Warwickshire. Stratford to Stratford is a project linking Stratford in Warwickshire with Stratford East London, where the 2012 Olympics will be held. They’re two diverse cultures, and East London is very different to rural Warwickshire, so we’re looking to have cultural exchanges for schools. Sporting links as well, get teams up playing against each other, so it’s all about the links that we can get between the two areas”.

“Peace and Reconciliation is our fifth project, which we’re looking at using the Cathedral. It’s actually the fiftieth consecration of the cathedral in 2012, so we’re linking in that golden jubilee celebration with the fact that it’s 2012, and we’re linking in the fact that Coventry is a city of peace and reconciliation in with the Olympic values. The last project is Africa Inspires, where we’re looking at African nations and seeing what can we do to benefit them in terms of their situation. Can we send sports coaches out there to help grass roots development out there and then in return them coming over and then us learning about their culture which we’re working on at the minute”.

For more information about the Coventry and Warwickshire 2012 Partnership, visit http://london2012.cswp.org.uk/ .

                          

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