This award goes to Greg Brockbank – Greg has been a driving force and an inspiration for the Women & Girls pathway in Otago. He has played a leading role from the Otago Under 13s rep programme, the Junior Academy Programme, and right through to Head Coach of the Otago Gold Rush.
Greg has shown an incredible talent for squeezing the very best out of his teams. In 2022 he took the Otago Under 19 Women’s team to Nationals where they were not considered a threat at the tournament. However, Greg bucked the odds to push the team through to the semifinals where they very nearly caused a huge upset over the powerful Canterbury team.
Greg’s commitment and abilities were best underlined at the combined Men’s U23 National Championship and the Women’s D League Tournament held at Eventfinda Stadium in Auckland in August. Greg coached both teams meaning he was at the helm of the two Otago teams on 11 occasions over four days!The Gold Rush team went all the way to the D League Grand Final beating Waikato in the quarter-finals and Canterbury in the semi-finals before falling 74-60 to Auckland Dream in a highly competitive Grand Final. The U23 Otago Men’s team narrowly missed out on a semi-final berth.
In further support of the Women & Girls pathway, in 2022, Greg launched a pioneering project to recruit, train, and support female coaches in Otago.
He has been further recognized for his coaching abilities by recently being asked to take up a support role with High Performance Sport NZ’s elite basketball programme and is also currently the Player Development Coach for the reigning NBL Champions, the Otago Nuggets.
