By MICHAEL ESPOSITO
CECIL Exum may have had stellar college and NBL career, but he has left an equally big impression on the sport of basketball post-retirement.
Exum was a guest speaker at last week’s monthly Don Deeble Rising Star Award dinner, which recognises the best young sporting talent in the West.
His son Dante is regarded as the best 16-year-old basketballer in the country, and is one of three finalists for the annual Don Deeble award, announced later this month.
Exum said his son had a dream to go one better than him and make an NBA squad, but he was by no means solely focused on developing his son’s basketball career.
What impressed last week’s audience just as much as his stories about playing with Michael Jordan was his unmistakable passion for nurturing young basketball talent in the West.
Exum set up an elite training program in Williamstown, and did one-on-one coaching with Rachel Jarry for two years when the prodigious basketballer was playing for Altona Juniors. She is now the youngest player in Australia’s Olympic women’s basketball team, and was last year’s Don Deeble Rising Star Award winner.
“A player like Rachel Jarry, who needs the fundamentals and the basics to go to higher levels, I take pride in what she has achieved,” Exum said.
Exum, a Seabrook resident, has also fought for young players, who he thought were being overlooked for representative selection.
“When was I was the Victorian Under 18 assistant coach in 2000, Dave Barlow was trialled but wasn’t going to get picked, but I fought for him. He got selected in the state team and now he’s an Olympian,” Exum said.
“If you look back over the years of players that have represented the State of Victoria, a majority of players on the rosters have come from the associations that the state coaches have come from.
Exum’s belief that talented western suburbs kids were being unfairly ignored prompted him to get involved in the state basketball program. He took former Werribee junior Lee Jeka under his wing when the young basketballer didn’t make the state side. He is now making more than $100,000 a year playing in Portugal.
The connections don’t end there. Exum has also coached fellow Don Deeble Rising Star award finalist Michael Luxford, who is Dante’s teammate in the Under 17 Australian basketball squad.
Exum’s personal story is also fascinating. He is the only male basketballer to have his singlet retired at his North Carolinian school Southern Wayne High School.
He was a member of the University of North Carolina basketball team that defeated Georgetown 63-62 to claim the 1982 National Collegiate Athletic Association championship in front of 104,000 people. Michael Jordan was among his University of North Carolina teammates.
He was then drafted by NBA team Denver Nuggets, but suffered a serious knee injury just before trials, effectively shattering his NBA dream.
“I had a dream, and the dream was gone in one instance of slipping on the court. I never had an injury in all my days of playing college basketball until I was ready to make money,” he said.
Exum then moved to Australia and had a distinguished career in the NBL, playing for the North Melbourne Giants, Melbourne Tigers and Geelong Supercats.
He said one of Dante’s main ambitions was to represent Australia at the Olympics.
