Australian Basketball Coaches

Lindsay Gaze

Lindsay John Casson Gaze was born on August 16, 1936 in Adelaide, South Australia. He is a basketball coach and a former professional basketball player. He played both basketball and Australian rules football when he was still a kid. He played in the Victorian Football Association for Parhan.

Although he didn’t pursue playing Victorian Football, he was still selected as a member of an Australian rules team that played an exhibition match in the Melbourne Olympics. He made his mark on basketball in the Summer Olympics.

In fact, he was selected for the Australian basketball team for the Rome Olympics which was the first Australian basketball team to travel overseas for the Olympics. He then established himself as one of the Australia’s leading basketball establishing an international reputation when he was selected as a member of the All-Star Five in the 1962 World Champions.

He also played in the Rome Olympics, Tokyo Olympics, and Mexico City Olympics. In 1984, Lindsay Gaze was the inaugural coach of the Melbourne Tigers at the start of the NBL. In the year 2005, he decided to retire and start his coaching career.

He led the Melbourne Tigers to win two championships in 1933 and in 1997. He coached the Australian national basketball team in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 in the Summer Olympics. Some of his achievements are: winning the NBAL Coach of the year three times in 1989, 1997, and 1999. He became the member of Australian Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and as a coach, and because of these achievements, he is considered as one of the best Australian basketball coaches.

Brian Goorjian

Brian Goorjian was born on July 28, 1953. He is considered as one of the most successful Australian Basketball Coaches. His coaching career started in 1988 when he coached the Eastside Spectres, which is an NBL team. Having won 400 games in his 20 years of his coaching career, Goorjian’s record exceeds that of Australian coaching legends in the other major professional basketball leagues including Kevin Sheedy.

In 2003 the NBL Hall of Fame selection committee voted Brian Goorjian the best coach of the first 25 years of the National Basketball League. Goorjian is also known for his intense coaching style (contrasting the laid back style of his early mentor Lindsay Gaze).

His former assistant coach Bill Tomlinson says the detail he paid to defence was notable, as was the emphasis on strength and conditioning which often made Goorjian coached teams the fittest in the league.[7] He said he sat down for his first six games in 1988, which he lost, and has stood during games ever since He won, together with his team, a total of six NBAL Championships in the year 1992, 1996, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2008. He led his team into 19 cosecutive playoffs appearance since 1990 to present.

His team had also a 13 Grand finals appearance in the year 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. He also won five awards as Coach of the Year in the years 1992, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008 and 2009.

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