New Illawarra-based podcast Hooked On Hoops to share untold stories of nation’s elite basketballers

Former Illawarra Hawks legend Glen Saville and his friend and fellow junior basketball coach Luke Musgrave have launched the podcast Hooked On Hoops, spotlighting the untold stories of top athletes and coaches – including being cut from teams, overlooked or underperforming as juniors.

The pair were coaching the Illawarra Hawks Under 14 Boys team for nationals last September in Melbourne, which sparked the idea for the unique concept described as “the greatest basketball podcast ever – according to Sav’s mum”.

Musgrave had watched Saville’s career through the Illawarra Hawks but hadn’t realised Saville’s own history playing in the under 14s at nationals in 1989.

“Each evening we’d get the kids sorted, and then we’d sit down to talk about the games, and then we usually moved on and talked about the early days,” Musgrave said.

“It’s one of those things where I watched him play, and I knew about his professional career, but had no idea that he went to under 14 nationals as a kid, and some of the things he went through.

“I got to the point where I was looking forward to the evenings for the next story.”

In April this year, Musgrave was made redundant and, for a while, had a lot of time on his hands.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘Geez, that was good fun, just sitting around hearing about Sav’s early days. I wonder if he’s got any mates that want to tell me their story as well?’

“I thought, ‘If he’s keen, maybe we can just flick on a microphone and record some of their stories.’”

After pitching the idea to Saville, they thought it would be something fun to do and a chance to showcase potential pathways juniors might want to take, whether for the love of the game or from a professional sense.

“I think there’s probably a lot of interesting messages for many people within some of the stories we have heard already and likely to hear,” Musgrave said.

“You’ve got some athletes that probably their junior story is going straight into the limelight,” Musgrave said.

“But there’s other stories where people have struggled and been overlooked, and all those junior years where they thought maybe it isn’t for me, and then one special event happens, and they get the chance they’ve been looking for, and they go on from there.

“It’s those stories I find fascinating, because it’s something people can relate to.”

He said those were the stories that Saville shared that he found most interesting and relatable.

“The fact Sav was playing under 14 nationals and became a professional player and played in the Olympics, well, my son was playing under 14 nationals,” he said.

“You realise it’s not just a pipe dream – kids actually can achieve things.

“But sometimes there’s setbacks, and sometimes you don’t make a team or you don’t win a game, but it’s all part of that journey.”

Saville admitted he’d never thought much of those stories.

“He saw what I did as a professional player, because it’s obviously all well documented, there’s footage of it and there’s news stories,” he said.

“But there’s nothing on getting cut from the under 20 state team, or there’s not the story on getting cut from the under 23 national team, and then being an Olympian a number of years later.

“That’s where we want to go with it and having already recorded some of these, we’re actually getting that out of the athletes, which is what we’re trying to achieve.”

The first episode will focus on Xavier Cooks, a Sydney Kings player who was born in Ballarat, but grew up in Wollongong and played for the Illawarra Hawks. He played college basketball, and this year was signed with the Washington Wizards in the NBA.

Saville played basketball with Xavier’s dad, while Musgrave knew Cooks from when he was with Illawarra’s under 16s.

“Back then, he was this really good story, because he was the smallest kid on the team, and certainly wasn’t the six foot eight beast on the basketball court he is now,” Musgrave said, laughing.

“He was a little kid just playing basketball and enjoyed himself.

“He never made an Australian junior team.

“His parents kept him away from basketball as much as possible when he was younger, and it wasn’t until he got a bit older that he got his opportunities.”

Saville said kids were starting in sport a lot younger now, which wasn’t the case with Cooks.

“It was interesting to talk to Xav in that his parents held him back from playing under 12 reps,” he said.

“That’s a family that comes from a basketball background.

“But the good thing he said is he played a number of different sports – I think one of them was rugby.”

Musgrave said Hooked On Hoops would appeal to fans of basketball through to young athletes coming through, and the parents of those athletes.

“I think there’s some good lessons in there as well, even potentially for athletes themselves.”

Learn more about Hooked On Hoops, which launches 1 July.