The Cook Islands men's basketball team has a new coach this season. Danny Williams started coaching the men's team this month as well as helping coach the women's team. Williams has been in Rarotonga since November last year after taking up the position of assistant manager at the CITC Mainstore.
This is the first time Williams has lived in the Cook Islands but he visited three years ago for a family reunion. His family arrive from New Zealand to join him this week. Williams says he joined the New Year one-day basketball tournament and played in the local competitions and has enjoyed it to date. It was through this experience he was offered the position of coach. He says he is passionate about the sport and has played basketball since he was at college in New Zealand. In 1985 Williams was named New Zealand's most outstanding basketball point guard. He has played provincial first division basketball for the Nelson Giants, Waitakere Rangers, North Harbour and the Auckland Stars. He says he played 10 years of first division basketball followed by four years in the second division. Williams took up coaching while living in Hamilton, helping the Waikato under 14s team take out two championships in recent years. Williams says to date there has been an excellent turnout by the players for the training sessions held twice a week. He says as a coach he is keen to focus on the younger players and has already seen some very good untapped talent. Williams says there is one 17-year-old boy who has a lot of potential and reminds him of New Zealand star player Pero Cameron. He says there is also a 13-year- old girl
who is playing very well for her age. "She could be great," says Williams. He says there is so much talent that some players will be able to go overseas and do well if they get the right coaching now. He says he is
also interested in getting mini-basketball going for those under the age of 10-years-old to provide them with progressive experience in the sport. .
Williams acknowledges his own basketball coach from his younger years and former Waikato Titans coach Ken Strother as having a big influence on his decision to get into coaching. Williams says a big plus with Pacific islanders is their sporting physique and their enthusiasm for sport. Williams says he is trying to improve the players' knowledge of the mental part of the game and is already seeing great improvements during training.
"I think people will see a different team come June," says Williams about the build up to the Pacific Rim tournament in Rarotonga. Williams says he is working well with his assistant Ezra Howe. As a former member of the Melbourne Tigers, Williams believes Howe has very good knowledge of the game. He says he is happy to be working with the current Cook Islands Basketball Federation executive because their hearts and interests are in the right place when it comes to the sport. "I think we will compliment each other in taking the game to
the next level," he says