One-time Illawarra Hawks player and now Boomers coach Adam Caporn. Photo: Basketball Australia.
Before Adam Caporn was recently announced as the new head coach of the national men’s basketball side, the Boomers, he was once a budding Illawarra rock musician.
Sure, he was also an Illawarra Hawks basketball player too, but let’s not digress too much.
The WA native was recruited to the then Wollongong Hawks in 2003 after a stint playing US college basketball with Saint Mary’s in California, where he would later start his coaching career as an assistant coach after his playing career finished in 2009.
The now 42-year-old is currently an assistant coach with the NBA Washington Wizards, having taken a long and diverse coaching journey.
Caporn played three seasons with the Hawks (2003-2006) before returning to Perth to play another three seasons.
During his time in Wollongong, Caporn forged some great friendships and, importantly, a two-piece band with Hawks and Boomers legend Glen Saville.
“We were called The Pickled Nipples, and then changed to The Moops,” Saville recalled with a chuckle.
“He came up with the names and I still don’t even know what ‘The Moops’ means.
“I reckon we played our one and only acoustic gig at Mat Campbell’s place one new year’s … not many of the great bands are one gig and done. The more inebriated we got, the better it sounded. It was good fun.
“Capes was the brains behind it and taught me how to play guitar.”
Saville remembered Caporn back then as a young man with “alt-indie” tastes and a penchant for The Eels and The Black Keys.
“I remember going on a Boomers tour once and he gave me this Black Keys album, I think it was Thickfreakness, and he said, ‘Listen to this while you are away,’” Saville laughed.
Saville would go on to form other bands with teammates, most infamously Surfing Sav and the Corrupted Cowboys.
“Adam Caporn planted the seed for me to be a very mediocre musician,’’ Saville laughed.
Yet it came as no shock to Saville when his former teammate and bandmate was named the man to lead Australia’s new generation of NBA stars in the hunt for global basketball glory.
“To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me,” Saville said.
“If you look at the pathway he took with the coach’s life … they are a special breed, coaches.
“If you are coaching at any level, you must have a particular level of confidence in your ability and that confidence as a young kid showed up with us.
“As a young kid, his thought processes, his effort and enthusiasm and mindset stood out and that’s how he played the game. He is a highly intelligent human being.”
The Saville and Caporn families have remained close, the Caporns even taking shelter with the Savilles in 2020 when their Canberra home appeared under threat from the bushfires.
As a former Boomer, Saville has full confidence his friend is the right man for the national job.
“He understands what it is to be an Aussie and understands what it means to us,” Saville said.
Speaking from the US having just checked into a hotel room in Portland ahead of a Wizards game with the Blazers, Caporn is direct and definitive on the influence his time on the Illawarra had on him becoming the coach and person he is today.
“That time had a really big influence on me,” Caporn said.
“I was one of the younger players on a winning team of veterans with a well-established structure and culture.
“The way I was treated I was so thankful for, with great empathy and consideration from the playing group.
“One of the things that impacted me was the leadership of Saville and (Mat) Campbell, as well as Lowery and others in the team who led in their own way. But the Mat and Sav combo was unique and powerful.
“There was a great combination of honesty and an expectation that something would be said and something would be done. People call it accountability, but I hate that term. It was just open and honest.
“I was having dinner at Sav’s house once a week and Mat is one of the most compassionate leaders I’ve ever met.
“The power of that combination helped me forge my own philosophy of leadership.”
Then there was the ‘Gong lifestyle.
“It was such a fun time and I’m thankful for it. I was with a good, professional team and what a great life experience of living in the ‘Gong,” he said.
“I grew up surfing and fishing; my dad was a keen fisherman. And the ethos of the ‘Gong, the blue-collar work ethic, I felt like I fit.”
Caporn said he “got the coaching bug” and he spent seven years as head coach of Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Canberra between 2014 and 2021, helping to grow the crop of young Australian basketballers now making headlines internationally.
While in Canberra, his wife Marcia, a US Stanford collegiate golfer and footballer, played NPL-level soccer and is an accomplished lawyer.
Their two children Josie and Spencer are now nine and eight respectively.
As a former Hawk and the national coach, Caporn has been keeping a close eye on the championship series – though his new role won’t see him pick sides.
“I actually just downloaded game three,” he said.
“Don’t ask me who I am going for though … I love everyone equally.”
Sensing a cue that he perhaps wants to sit and relax and watch the game, the closing question relates to a threat from Saville to wear his The Moops T-shirt to a Boomers game.
“I would love that; that would be awesome,” he enthused.
There is something reassuring knowing the new national coach has a touch of the Illawarra in him.
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