A community initiative by Basketball New Zealand (BBNZ) is helping to make basketball more accessible to Aotearoa youth – with the latest instalment putting smiles on the faces of Taranaki kids.
The Hoops in Schools initiative works with Regional Sports Trusts, local basketball associations and funding providers to install quality hoops into primary and secondary schools – giving kids the opportunity to play basketball with their friends and peers, often in areas where these opportunities can be otherwise limited.
Since launching in 2018, the programme has installed 98 basketball hoops across 49 schools around the country, with more already planned for this year.
The programme’s most recent efforts saw twenty-four new hoops given to 12 schools across the Taranaki region earlier this month, including New Plymouth, Patea, Opunake, Inglewood and Hawera – all thanks to support from Basketball Taranaki, Taranaki Airs, Sport Taranaki and New Zealand Community Trust.
Each school celebrated their new hoop with a visit from some kiwi basketball heroes; among these BBNZ Chief Executive Dillon Boucher, Tall Blacks head coach Pero Cameron, Tall Ferns athlete Zoe Richards and Tai Wynyard and Richie Rodger from the Taranaki Steelformers Airs. Children at each school were able to ask them questions about basketball and their careers, as well as participate in drills, practice their shooting and have a fun time.
Michaela, 8, says that she appreciates both the new hoop at her school, and the opportunity to see some of her basketball heroes up close.
“I like the hoop at the front of my school, as I want to play basketball with my friends and get better at it – so I can be like Tai or Zoe when I’m older. Well maybe I won’t be like Tai, as he’s super tall.”
Zoe Richards says it was great for her to get out into the community and be amongst children who are eager to be involved in basketball.
“It’s great to be able to inspire these kids, especially the younger girls, to just pick up a basketball and be able to go shoot some hoops on an actual basketball hoop,” says Richards.
“A lot of these kids don’t already have the opportunity [to learn basketball], in most schools you’ll see a netball pole but not always basketball hoops, so it’s cool that see schools like these ones in Taranaki provide an opportunity for kids to go and pick up a basketball and shoot on a proper hoop.”
BBNZ Facilities and Insights lead, Daniel Dawick said that as basketball continues to grow across Aotearoa, so too does the opportunity for young people to experience the fun and excitement of the sport for the first time.
“One of the key objectives of Hoops in Schools is to ensure more tamariki and rangatahi are physically active and having fun playing hoops in their local communities,” says Dawick.
“With the rapid growth in participation and increasing popularity of the sport, there still remains some real challenges to cater for this growth – but that’s why Hoops in Schools is so important, as it directly addresses these challenges and ensures there are more long-term participation opportunities for local communities.”
Kevin Fenwick, GM of Basketball Taranaki says that the programme has exposed a lot of children to basketball – some for the first time – and sparked a passion in them to try it out.
“I think you can see, just from the enthusiasm and energy from the kids we saw, that having these hoops in schools is providing an opportunity that they probably would never have had – if the Hoops in Schools programme not been underway,” says Fenwick.
“We went to a rural school this morning, right out in the back blocks of Taranaki and we could see the immense effect this programme has had for their students – it’s great to see. And having these role models from the Tall Blacks, Tall Ferns and Taranaki Airs here is helping to spark these kid’s interests even further, they’ve been inspirational to them.”
Fenwick says its important that rural schools and areas are given the same opportunities to play basketball as the city centres.
“We’re really conscious around making sure that South Taranaki kids get equal opportunities to be involved as those in New Plymouth; sometimes that’s a challenge because we have the facilities and the numbers in the city. So we make sure we fully involve our member associations in rural areas and give them every opportunity to have kids in their areas able to participate in basketball.”
Dawick says that the programme delivers on BBNZ’s vision of ‘a hoop in the heart of every community’, which is a direct output of the organisation’s Basketball Strengthen & Adapt Plan which BBNZ launched last year.
“The Strengthen & Adapt Plan included eight improvement areas which aim to help transform and strengthen basketball in New Zealand, and ‘spaces to play’ is one of these. We wanted to maximise outdoor spaces to be more accessible and visible to a diverse range of communities, and the Hoops in Schools – along with the Hoops in Parks initiative – are both living embodiments of that.”
Dawick says that Hoops in Schools will now make its way down south as it continues its delivery of hoops where it can impact children the most.
“We’re looking at the 100th hoop being installed in Nelson next month, and our goal is to have an additional 50 hoops installed across Aotearoa this year – thanks to the support of all the schools, health organisations and community funding groups we work with.
“It’s possible that New Zealand has never had as many outdoor basketball spaces as it does now, which bodes well for the future of the sport. As basketball builds in popularity across Aotearoa, we see the growth coming more and more at a young age and often at grassroots level – so I have no doubt we’ll see the fruits of this hard work in the years to come.”
