Our culture should be shared more: Williams on Indigenous Round

Kerry Williams found it hard to hide his pride as he watched the Adelaide 36ers players taking part in a cultural event as part of the club’s build up to this week’s Indigenous Round game against Illawarra.

The assistant coach has been around the game for a long time and is a proud Gugu Yalanji and Tribalang Bunda man from far north Queensland.

He was there on Tuesday as the Adelaide 36ers players and staff took part in smoking ceremony run by Kaurna elder Uncle Mickey O’Brien and heard cultural stories about knowledge sharing across generations.

Former NBL player Paul Vandenbergh, himself a Wirangu and Kokatha man from South Australia’s Far West Coast, brought students from his Aboriginal Basketball Academy along and they showed Sixers players how to throw a boomerang.

Finally artist Temaana Yundu Sanderson-Bromley spoke to the group about working with the ABA students to design the club’s Indigenous jersey that will be worn during Sunday’s game.

It was a special experience for Williams.

“It's always fun and you're proud when you see your culture being shared,” he told Adelaide 36ers Media.

“It was an extra bonus because my son was with the young fellas in the ABA.

“It’s made my transition to Adelaide a little bit easier with Paul Vandenbergh, the founder of ABA being a close friend of mine, and someone that I was connected with through basketball.

“He's taken care of my son in the Aboriginal Basketball Academy, which is great.

“And it's always great watching the (36ers) players taking it all in, you know like watching Zylan (Cheatham) out there with Boomerangs and Flynn (Cameron).

“There’s a lot to our culture and I think it should be shared more, especially in the game of basketball.

“It’s one thing that I would hope to hope to do more of in my journey as a basketball coach.”

Things have changed significantly since Williams played over 100 games for Cairns in the NBL.

The NBL introduced a designated Indigenous Round back in 2023 and it continues to grow each year.

Yet Williams laments a lack of Indigenous representation in the game with just four First Nations players in the game.

“When I was playing the league, there was probably a handful of us, and we're still very good friends and brothers to this day,” Williams explained.

“We're all doing our part in that space to try and promote pathways for Indigenous kids in basketball.

“It wasn’t around when I was playing but obviously the Indigenous Round is important because it highlights our culture and what it means to us in Australia.

“We have some rules around Indigenous players in trying to promote more players in the league. And obviously now, you know, with the work that Paddy Mills has done, with his stature, being the Boomers captain and winning a bronze medal for the Boomers, when he’s so proud of his Aboriginal and Torres Strait heritage. That's obviously promoted basketball in our culture in the games.”

Williams is more qualified than most to talk on the issue of Indigenous representation in the game.

As well as his playing career, he has coached at NBL1 level in far north Queensland, worked as an Indigenous Programs Manager for Cairns, worked as an assistant coach for the Boomers and was head coach of the Indigenous Basketball Australia Indigenous All-Stars side.

He’s also been the head coach in the Basketball Australia National Indigenous Performance Camp.

And the current Sixers assistant coach finds it fitting that his side will face Illawarra on Sunday when the club celebrates Indigenous Round given the Hawks are the only side to have First Nations players in their side.

“We're coming up against Illawarra this weekend with Will Hickey and Biwali Bayles, Kobe McDowell-White and Johnny Narkle,” he smiled.

“Hearing about Biwali and Davo's story and the perseverance they've had to have to stay in the league and what Hickey's done now, win a championship and represent the Boomers now.

“And Bales, you know, went to the Summer League and now he's back in the NBL, which is great.

“I think we need to highlight that more just so that the kids, the Indigenous kids, can see that there is a pathway and that there are people of the same colour that, the same culture that are playing in the NBL.”

On the Hawks, Williams has identified the threat of former NBA man JaVale McGee as something to curtail and said the reigning NBL Champions have a lot of other quality to be aware of.

“They've had some injuries, so they've sort of been depleted in that aspect,” he said.

“They brought in McGee, and they've had a big win in Perth on the weekend so they'll be feeling confident.

“McGee is going to be tough to cover but at the same time, we had a hard battle against Melbourne. We thought we should have won that.

“But we’ve moved on and we’ve got to prepare for Illawarra. We've got to do some things to continue to grow as a group so we'll worry about that first and then obviously as we get closer to Illawarra we'll focus on the scout and how to prepare for them.”