By BACT Media Unit – 10 February 2023

Basketball ACT is saddened to farewell Head of High Performance and Coaching, Phil Brown, who announced his departure from the role in late 2022, which he has held for nine years.

Brown, a former Canberra Cannon, AIS Coach and WNBL winning coach, has overseen the athletic trajectory of numerous young players into ACT representative teams, college opportunities, Waratah League, NBL1, WNBL, NBL, WNBA and NBA.  Brown has also held responsibilities for delivering coaching courses from the community level through to the elite level, in line with Basketball Australia programs. 

Newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Nicole Bowles said “I would like to wish Phil all the very best for the next chapter in his basketball journey and thank him for all the tremendous work he has done over his tenure at Basketball ACT.  His knowledge and experience in developing athletes, coaches and the high-performance environment has seen our standing grow in the national and international basketball ranks, and he leaves an amazing foundation and legacy for the future.”

On reflection of his time at Basketball ACT, Mr Brown said, “While it has been a challenging but rewarding nine years in the role, we have made considerable progress in developing a stronger performance pathway for talented junior basketball players in the region. Our commitment to the National Performance Program (NPP) continues to increase with more of athletes supported supported through individualised development programs through our partnership with Club Lime and a full-time Strength & Conditioning Coach at BACT”.  

“The creation of the Canberra Nationals Academy Women’s program to support and retain young women in the performance pathway and better underpin the Canberra Nationals program has been a major achievement.  Our commitment to our NBL1 athletes continues to be expand through the provision of physiotherapy servicing including pre-season athlete screening, prehab programming and year-round strength and conditioning service delivery”.         

“The record number of ACT players progressing to the US college system and to the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence and junior Australian squads, has been a notable achievement.  While our PWID program we have had a number of male and female players selected for the Australian Boomerangs and Pearls National squads.  Our ACT U18 Men winning the Bronze Medal at the 2021 U18 Australian Junior Championships and the Canberra Gunners winning the inaugural NBL1 East Championships in 2022 with locally developed playing roster, have also been major achievements. ”

“I would like to thank the BACT Board for their confidence and support over the past nine years and wish the Association including the players, coaches, managers and the BACT staff the very best wishes moving forward”.