Heart of the Heartland: Sherbrooke

Sherbrooke Basketball Association has been providing junior and senior domestic basketball competitions for residents of the Shire of Yarra Ranges (formerly Shire of Sherbrooke) and the Shire of Cardinia since 1975.

At the representative level Sherbrooke Basketball compete as the Sherbrooke Suns in both the Victorian Junior Basketball League (VJBL) and Big V.

Between 800-1000 Heartland hoops lovers participate at the Sherbrooke Basketball Asssociation.

(Former Sherbrooke import Grant Johnson was recently named Big V Male player of the decade)

Sherbrooke President Mick Spruhan on...

What makes Sherbrooke special:

"We’re a community organisation and we try to walk the walk as much as we talk the talk.

"As far as communication goes we like to think we’re very open with our members and we listen to what people say. We recognise we’re not going to have all the ideas of what can be done better and we recognise we’re never going to be a major association size-wise, so we want to make basketball a good experience for everybody.

"We as much as possible try to be an inclusive organisation. If we had 14 players come along for the Under-14 Boys or Girls, instead of making a team of 10 and telling four they’re not good enough, we’ll create two teams of seven and go out and pick up other players to fill in."

Future plans:

"We’ve got a new four-court stadium that’s being built at Upwey High School which will be our main venue, certainly for all our Big V games.

"Who knows, we might even get the Phoenix there for a practice game or a training session because once the seating and everything is in, we’ll be able to fit about 500 people in the place."

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SHERBROOKE WEBSITE AND GET INVOLVED IN HEARTLAND HOOPS

Having an NBL club back in the region:

"The Phoenix have come about from more of a community approach, which is like us.

"It’s not so much about how much we can contribute to your pockets, it’s more about what can you do for us which in turn will lead to greater involvement from our association with our members and players."

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PHOENIX'S MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS

Community spirit at Sherbrooke:

"If it’s done right, basketball should be community focused, not just concentrating on getting the dollars through the door and bums on the seats. It’s about looking outside of that and being a part of your community.

"We anticipate the new four-court stadium to be financially beneficial and if that’s the case, we shouldn’t just be grabbing all those dollars and popping them into import players; let’s put some dollars back into the local community, let’s support the less fortunate or the people in the community who are lonely.

"Our board sees us being in the community as opposed to an organisation that operates within a community."

Phoenix Media (15/09/2020)