MICHAEL AH MATT

6 feet 2 inch (188cm) Forward

1964 and 1968 Olympic Games

The action was what most had seen before and expected to see again. The South Australian Men’s Basketball Team were playing at the 1968 National Championships in Sydney. SA was playing NSW. A NSW player took a shot, missed, and there was a long rebound. A familiar whistle came from one of the SA players which meant “I am here give me the ball”. The very lithe, willowy player got the ball and set off down the court weaving through opponents. He hesitated at the top of the keyhole as the defence covered him, then he did a spectacular spin dribble, was checked, dribbled behind his back and drove hard left (his favoured hand) to the basket. As the NSW big men closed in to swat his shot away the “will o’ the wisp” passed the ball behind his back for a team-mate to score an easy lay-up. The crowd roared their appreciation of one of the great magicians of the game of basketball in Australia, Michael Ah Matt. Michael Henry George Ah Matt was born on the 30th of November, 1942 in Townsville, Queensland. He was brought to Darwin and raised by the Damaso family. Educated at St Mary’s Convent School in Darwin, Michael was an extremely gifted sportsman and excelled at whatever sport took his fancy. He won the Northern Territory doubles tennis title with another basketball player Benny Lew Fatt. An outstanding Australian Rules footballer Michael played in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL) with the Buffaloes and was the NTFL leading goal scorer in 1959 and 1960. Basketball was the sport in which he became a legend. He played with a local club called Rusty Valley and later on with another club side the Hawks. He was selected to represent Northern territory in 1959 and came with that team to the Australian Championships which were held in Adelaide. The South Australian Basketball Association identified Michael as a great basketball potential and with the assistance of the South Adelaide Club brought him to Adelaide. At the South Adelaide Club Michael won the club Best and Fairest Player Award seven times and he established a great playing partnership with future Olympian Scott Davie. Over the years at South Adelaide he played with other great SA players Joe Clarke, Dean Whitford, Bob Hannan, Don Shipway, Ken Cole, Andy Campbell and Darryl Pearce. The latter three went on to become Olympians. Michael represented South Australia over an amazing twenty year period and at one stage held the record for the most SA representative games by having played for his State at the senior level 588 times. Michael became the first Aboriginal-Torres Strait Islander basketball player to represent Australia in the Olympic Games when he was selected on the 1964 Australian basketball team for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. (There is some thought that Michael may have been the first Aboriginal-Torres Strait Islander to represent Australia at the Olympics in any sport). This team went on to become one of the great Olympic Basketball Teams in Australian basketball history. It qualified through the very tough Olympic Qualification Tournament in Yokohama and then went on to the Finals in Tokyo and secured 9th place in the Olympic tournament. This was Australia’s best ever result to that time. Such was Michael’s exuberance and competitiveness that in a dramatic last second win over Taiwan he raced onto the court and in the celebrations received a large gash to his forehead from a team-mate’s elbow and received four stitches for his efforts.

Michael was a tremendous “will o’ the wisp” basketball player with phenomenal dribbling and passing skills. He was also renowned for his spinning backboard shots which seemed to come out of nowhere. His opponents were never quite sure where he was passing the ball and to whom, and the same could be said for his own team-mates. One visiting American coach remarked, “He is the best passer of a basketball outside the US I have ever seen.”