ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has taken thirteen years to compile and write. The process has been a slow labour of love. As I have stated previously the extent of Australian records covering Australian basketball in Olympic Games from 1956 to 2000 has been extremely scarce. One of the aims of this book has been to try to recover records but in most cases record the “missing” history from a variety of sources.

I wish to thank all those who have contributed to this book. Much of the information comes from their personal records, memories and memorabilia. Without their help, patience and passion for the project this book would not have been possible. I cannot recognise all of you however you know who you are and I will always be grateful to you.

The Olympians recognised in this book have been the major source of the information needed to tell their stories and the history of each of the Olympic Games covered here. They have been passionate in providing me with their personal photographs, newspaper clippings, reports and diaries. Many hours have been taken in conducting personal interviews or communicating with them in writing or by telephone. I thank you all.

There are some who I wish to recognise as being extremely helpful in providing me not only with the information needed for their stories but also the stories of others who have passed away or simply “disappeared”. Others have also assisted me greatly with information regarding their team and the Olympic Games they participated in for Australia.

In regard to the Australian Men’s Olympic Basketball Teams my special thanks to George Dancis, Mike Dancis and Inga Freidenfelds who provided me with so much information and photographs regarding the players and coaches who grew up in the Baltic countries, came to Australia and represented Australia at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games. Gunars Berzzarins was most generous in his time on the same subject and was of great value in providing information regarding players and coaches who have passed away. Bruce Flick provided much information on the NSW players and basketball around the 1956 Olympic Games. John Heard was a great help in providing information for the 1960 and 1964 Games as well as in chasing up information on other “lost” Olympians. Peter Byrne’s photographs from 1968 were a “rarity” and will greatly assist the archives. Similarly Richard Duke’s photographs from the 1972 Games were of great assistance as were Andy Blicavs and Tony Barnett for the 1976 Games. Paul Rogers and Craig Purdam entrusted me with their photographs and slides to scan and record for the book. Thank you to all the players who provided me with images of their team-mates. It is amazing how many Olympians do not have images of themselves in Olympic gear or from their playing or coaching days. Thankfully others were able to fill the gaps.

My thanks to Jeff Crowe and Sport the Library for the use of their images, it was much appreciated.

My special thanks to Lindsay Gaze for his marvellous memory and diaries. His assistance with details of the 1964 Games and in particular the 1960 Games was invaluable. He and I communicated countless times over the last thirteen years and he was always only too eager to assist.

In regard to the Australian Women’s Team (Opals) information gathering was much easier as the Australian women’s basketball participation in Olympic Games is of more recent times. However there were “gaps” that I needed a lot of assistance with. The assistance of Rachael Sporn and her mother with newspaper clippings, especially for the 1992 Women’s Olympic Basketball Qualification Tournament was of great value. Annie LaFleur and Trish Fallon helped out with images from Games which enabled me to give a more personal and behind the scenes touch to the story.

Although the files and records at Basketball Australia on our Olympic Games participation are very sparse the staff at BA was always most willing to help out any way they could with what they had. My special thanks to Marc Howard, Lorraine Landon, Marie Byrne and Chuck Harmison who I pestered constantly and took up their valuable time. My thanks also go to the various newspaper journalists who assisted me with images and background stories from their files and gave their papers’ permission to publish their photographs.

Olympian Mel Dalgleish of PARAGON PRINTING has thrown his resources behind the project and he has made this project “affordable” and has given me the confidence to make the project such an extensive one. The staff at META DESIGN, Jill Duncan and Inge Josipovic, have done a great job on the designing and formatting of the book with Mel’s support and direction. The project of having a “coffee table” style book was always an ambitious one. This was more so when the draft of the book turned out to be twice as large as intended. However we were determined to tell “the whole story” for the sake of the records and META DESIGN did a tremendous job of making it all work.

Finally my gratitude and thanks go to my wife Carolyn and my children Deanne, Megan and Mark who has whole-heartedly supported the writing of this book. Mark in particular guided me through the intricacies of compiling files for the book’s images. He set up various files and computer aptitudes to assist in the writing of the book that were way beyond my capabilities let alone understanding. Carolyn has had to endure thirteen years of me “disappearing” into my study (sometimes for up to 8-9 hours a day) to write the book. She also edited most of the book for me and her many hours of editing and valuable advice regarding the writing of the book were of tremendous assistance to me. Above all her unrelenting support kept me on task and “got me over the line” to write the book.