Selwyn Times: November 20, 2019

26 Wednesday November 20 2019
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
SELWYN TIMES
Rising up the basketball ranks
Greendale-raised Burton
Shipley has been elected to
one of the most powerful
positions in world basketball.
Gordon Findlater reports
FROM GROWING up on
a family farm in Greendale,
Burton Shipley has gone onto
win a national basketball title
with Canterbury, been the
husband to a prime minister,
chaired the co-ordination of
one of the world’s biggest sports
tournaments and is now on a
first name basis with one of the
sport’s highest profile figures –
Yao Ming.
Shipley’s rapid rise as a decision
maker in basketball reached
a new high recently. After
finishing a successful stint as
chairman of the local organising
committee for the recent International
Basketball Federation
World Cup in China, Shipley
was promoted to the role of vicepresident
of FIBA.
“It’s not something that I
expected, but it’s a huge honour,”
said Shipley.
Growing up in Greendale,
Shipley played rugby, golf and
cricket and didn’t discover basketball
until being sent to board
at St Andrew’s College in the
1960s.
“At boarding school it’s pretty
hard to have time on your own,
but we could always get into the
gym and find a ball to shoot
some hoops,” said Shipley.
PLAYING DAYS: Shipley (No 5) was part of the Canterbury
team which won the 1972 national provincial tournament.
He excelled at the sport, pushing
up through the grades and
went on to represent Canterbury
as an age-group player. Following
school he won multiple
Canterbury club titles with his
YMCA club side and in 1973
they won the Old Crow Trophy –
the national club title.
“We had strong clubs. In the
top division there was High
School Old Boys, YMCA, University,
Checkers, I think the
army had a team in the top division
for a while,” said Shipley.
“The winner of that went to a
national tournament in Wellington.
Coca Cola from Auckland
were the gun team at the time
they had Steve McKean . . . he
was an American import and
went on to coach New Zealand.”
A year earlier the 193cm
forward – who admits he often
played anywhere on the court
and described himself a tough
player – was part of the Canterbury
team which won the
national provincial title. He trialled
for New Zealand, but didn’t
make the squad.
Shipley, now based in Auckland,
stopped playing the game
competitively at a young age and
by the mid-1970s had returned to
farming in Greendale.
“My parents marriage broke
up and I had an opportunity to
take over a large farming property
and had debt up to my
ears. It was time to do work
. . . I certainly was never going to
make any money out of playing
basketball,” he said.
For the next decade Shipley’s
only involvement in basketball
RUBBING
SHOULDERS:
Yao Ming
joined Shipley
courtside to
watch the
Tall Blacks
play China in
Auckland last
year. ​
SPORT
was organising a basketball competition
for locals in the gym at
Darfield High School.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s
that Shipley retired from farming,
when wife Jenny became
a Minister of Parliament and
later the prime minister. They
moved to Wellington, where he
found work for an investments
company.
He was approached to chair
the New Zealand National Basketball
League in 1999. Shipley
held the position until 2003
when he accepted a position on
the Basketball New Zealand
board. In 2005 he was recruited
to chair the New Zealand Breakers
board. It was FIBA’s turn next
when Basketball New Zealand
nominated him for a governing
role for FIBA Oceania. He was
first enlisted to help drive basketball
in lesser developed nations
throughout the region and went
onto hold the president of FIBA
Oceania role.
With his role organising the
this year’s World Cup in China
Shipley flew out of New Zealand
17 times in 2017 and about that
same about in 2018.
“We overcame many challenges
and I think the key was to
realise the cultural differences
that we needed to manage. China
is a big country and I think people
forget that China has been a
very successful nation for a very
long time. They do business their
way and they do it totally differently
from the western way of
doing business. I always tried to
get the team to think about that,”
said Shipley.
Part of his dealing in China
has led to Shipley developing a
close relationship with former
NBA superstar Yao Ming who is
now the president of the China
Basketball Association and is
also chairman of FIBA Asia.
“He’s a stunning man he really
is,” said Shipley.
“I was in a conference once
that he spoke at and it would
have about 4000 people standing
in a big foyer and you can
imagine the noise. Yao walked
on with a couple of his mates
ready to go on a panel and all of
a sudden there was just absolute
dead silence.
“More importantly I’m interested
in what he’s trying to do for
China basketball and I try and
aid where I can because he’s got
a huge opportunity, but a huge
challenge.”
While Shipley’s attention
will now be turned to his new
role as vice president of FIBA
he says the development of
basketball in New Zealand is still
something he pays attention to
and hopes to see growth in the
sport particularly in the national
league.
“It’s still reasonably strong,
but it need to be more marketed.
It’s one of the hard things in
a country like New Zealand –
where rugby is so dominant – for
other sports. I find it fascinating
where you look now and see
how popular basketball is as
a participation sport at high
schools . . . and yet if I read the
paper in the morning I’d be very
surprised if I see anything on
basketball at all, which is a great
pity really,” said Shipley.