THE sun has not long risen but the floorboards are already cheeping under the friction of rubber soles.
They’re squeaks that stir a flood of memories for any basketball fan.
For Joondalup Basketball Stadium administrators Van and Mary Kailis, this has been the soundtrack to many of their mornings for nearly the past three decades.
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Mr Kailis had been at the stadium since 6am when he welcomed the Weekender into the home of local basketball. Players were already practising jump shots.
But mornings have become different since the highly respected Kailis pair announced their end-of-year retirement last week. Mornings are no longer a routine, but a countdown.
It is also a chance for Mr Kailis to reflect on an esteemed administrative and coaching career that’s had him not just witness the highs and lows of Australian basketball, but live them.
The husband and wife team, both life members of the Wanneroo Basketball Association, has been a central part of the stadium and the association since 1986.
Mr Kailis has lived in Duncraig for more than 30 years.
“Always my dream was to have a shop and a basketball stadium so when we came here I worked as a volunteer for six months,” he said. “I put a proposal to the association and I got the lease.”
“When we started, we struggled with numbers; I used to go to the primary schools and do the basketball clinics, but slowly it just grows and now we’re very healthy.
“We came very close (in the early years) to the City of Joondalup coming in to take over administration. Mary started working here and cutting back and watching what we spent so we got over it.”
The worldwide boom of basketball in the first half of the ’90s led to prosperous times for the sport in Joondalup.
Mr Kailis coached the Wanneroo Wolves women’s SBL team to a championship in 1990, earning him the coach of the year award. It was his second championship with the team, which won the 1986 title.
He assisted the Wolves men when they took their first championship in 1993, led by SBL legend Vince Kelley.
The mentor also helped launch WA’s first women’s franchise the Perth Breakers, now Perth Lynx, as an assistant coach in their inaugural season in 1988.
And while on-court success was a significant career highlight for Mr Kailis, the memories he most cherished were of coaching kids whose parents he had also taught.
“I see the whole circle and that’s satisfying,” he said.
In an indication of the importance he places on junior basketball, he said the most exciting achievement of his career was when the association won WA Basketball’s best junior club award for five years straight.
Around that period, Mrs Kailis’ efforts earned her Basketball Australia’s 2005 administrator of the year title as the most outstanding in the country.
They are experiences the Kailises will miss in retirement, but with the association soon to relocate to Arena Joondalup, they considered it an appropriate time to sub out of the game.
Weekends during the basketball season involve days that start at 6am and end at midnight so they were looking forward to freeing up time to spend with their grand- children. But in the meantime, there’s still an SBL championship to be won.
Mr Kailis hoped their administrative reign at the stadium would end on the highest note possible. The Joondalup Wolves men’s and women’s sides are both vying for a grand final spot in their respective semi-finals this weekend.
“The women – I hope they do it, but it’s a big question mark,” he conceded.
“I think the men should go all the way – they’ve got the players, the team and the bench to do it.”